And If Not Winter
by hasitsclaws
Summary: The songs say the Gods created everything, but winter was created by she. (A Hades/Persephone Middle Ages AU.)
1. Part One

**A/N**: This is an AU I've had the idea for for a long while now. It is based off of the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone, only set in an alternate universe of the middle ages. It ultimately has a bit of A Song of Fire and Ice atmosphere to it in order to accommodate the mythological feels, and because to be perfectly honest the series inspired the time settings. I plan on telling this story roughly in ten parts, and this is the beginning. Any comments or questions, feel free to ask.

* * *

"_This is the way the world ends,_

_This is the way the world ends,_

_This is the way the world ends-_

_Not with a bang, but a whimper._"

- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men.

* * *

Part One

* * *

The songs say the Gods created everything, the earth, the air, the sea. They fashioned man in their image and said _do as we trust you to_ but no mortal has ever adhered strictly to their law. _We are a sin_ is what is whispered in the temples, the festivals held in the Gods' honor. _We are unholy creatures which, for that, we shall all pay a price._ And that is why there is madness; that is why there is war and greed and pride, the taste of blood as crisp as pomegranates.

That is why Persephone came to be– a settling of peace between peoples, between the Ten Great Men of the Titanomachy. The lands of Elláda won from Ouranos the First to be divided among the remaining six of the Ten Greats that had survived the war. _I give you my sister, you give me your oath, _the new King said to Persephone's father, and the new Lord Prometheus Manthanos swore fealty, the lands of Eleusinian forever his, forever Persephone's, at a cost.

_If only he had said 'no',_ she thinks to herself as she stares at the fire in the hearth before her, green flames licking at the stones like the kiss of a lover, of _her_ lover and master of this castle, this blackened fortress forever made to keep her barred. A bird in a cage, the sweet notes of those sacred songs lost from her lips. _I would never have been brought here had my father just said 'no'; I would be free._

Rough, callused palms slide over her shoulders and she whimpers, bites into her tongue to draw the sharp sting of pain. It is the only way to quell the ache in her belly, the thrum in her heart. _I would do anything to make you happy,_ he whispers, breath hot against her ear with small flutters of lips along her pulse, loving and sworn. A traitorous shiver of longing runs down her spine. _Let me leave,_ she asks of him softly, his kisses turning to scowls as his head shakes, nose nuzzling at the marks of teeth he has forever settled into the skin of her neck, a beast in possessive heat. _Anything but that; you know anything but that._

She keeps her eyes on the fire, ice settling in her veins to chase away the desire, the need. _Then I shall never be happy, my Lord,_ she says, voice even and deep. _Not as long as I am not free._

The songs say the Gods created everything, but winter was created by she.

* * *

"Persephone!" calls her lady mother, urgent and somewhere far off, like a rooster trying to crow its way into Persephone's morning dreams. "Persephone, sweetling, you are going to catch cold!"

She giggles, stifles the sound with a hand over her mouth and lies back in the meadow, eyes staring longingly to the skies. _How lucky the Gods must be,_ she thinks to herself, fingers grasping at the soft earth below her, blades of lush grass split between her fingers. She has envied their freedom for as long as she can remember, maybe even farther back than that. Gods do not have the responsibilities of mortals– they do not have to war and work and marry, if they do not wish. How Persephone longs for such liberties that her heart aches.

"Persephone!" her lady mother is all but frantic now, Demeter's harsh voice piercing the waning summer air.

Sighing, Persephone rolls to her side to address the small, orange tabby there, its ears perked up in rapt attention. "She is going to give herself a stroke one of these days, Cyane," says Persephone softly, the kitten _mew_ing and snuggling against her side. Once more, Persephone giggles. "If only she would stop treating me as such a child, her worries would be far less."

It is indeed that Persephone's lady mother should not worry of her so. She is no longer a child but a woman grown, and has been for many moons now. At nearly nine and ten, it is an amazement to most that Persephone is not yet wedded to a lord husband. Girls far younger than herself were married off long ago and are already mothers, nursing babes and carrying younglings on their hips. Nearly all of Persephone's friends from girlhood no longer live in the groves of Eleusinian under their parents' care, but instead with their husbands in houses of their own.

Persephone has always turned her cheek at the notion. Marriage is a word synonymous with entrapment to her, with _death_. As the daughter of a Lord and niece of the King it is known to Persephone that her duty is to marry a man of noble blood. But duty and passion are two completely different things, and Gods know her passion lies not in being a good lady wife, but an adventurer the world tells stories of. A warrior of new and old, who could make her late father proud, Lord of Eleusinian or not.

"_Persephone_!" The sudden impatience in her lady mother's voice is enough to make Persephone realize that playing games will not be stood for today; she has not a choice but to go back to the confining walls of the castle where she will no doubt be expected to mend clothes and bake bread and do everything a _lady_ has to, when all Persephone really wants is to go to sword training with Eleusinian's handful of nymphan knights, just to feel the thrum of her blood in her veins and know she is alive, that she has not petrified to porcelain the way most girls her age have.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she calls with a short roll of her eyes, standing to brush soil off her skirts. "You'd think it was snowing torrents, with how imperative Mother sounds," she says, looking down to the tabby once more, which simply hops up to join her as she begins walking back towards the castle, leaving the meadow behind. She's not looking forward to being locked inside all of winter, Demeter fretting of pneumonia and shingles. Really, it's a silly conception. The coldest it ever gets in their small land of Eleusinian leaves only gooseflesh on Persephone's skin; hardly enough she shouldn't be allowed the sun for four months of the year.

The nearer she gets to the castle– its dark gloom and all too familiar stones– the more the longing for freedom in the pit of her stomach grows. What she wouldn't give to be rid of this place; rid of shackles around her wrists. She loves her lady mother dearly, but Demeter is overly smothering in care, if there ever was such a soul that embodied the phrase.

In some ways Persephone supposes she _is_ thankful to have a mother that cannot be convinced her precious daughter is no longer a child. It has thus far saved her from an arranged marriage to some high lord that would simply want her for birthing lots of sons and looking pretty next to his throne. At least under Demeter's care, Persephone has been able to work in the Eleusinian fields with the other women of the lands– the nymphs and the sprites and fairies; can tend to gardens and ride horses for errands and feel useful when they reap the sows of harvest that she helped grow.

But Gods how she selfishly craves more.

The longing for sovereignty is a sort of broad idea to Persephone. It is something that means the ability to travel the world– those new corners that explorers on ships and foot reach every day. She wants to feel the real bite of winter, the salt of the ocean. She wants to climb mountains, get in brawls in taverns with adrenaline rushing through her limbs. She wants to find new places, new people, new creatures the Gods have set upon the earth. She wants to brandish scars, show that just because she is a woman it does not mean she is weak. She wants to earn stories to tell around fires to young girls who wish to live the lives of men just as she does.

She want not want to be a daughter, a wife, a mother; she simply wants to _be_.

With each name day she realizes again and again that even staying in Eleusinian is something she may not be able to achieve much longer. Her lady mother cannot stave off marriage for her forever. She has not claimed to be a maiden under the covenant of Athena, the missionaries of these realms. Demeter has begged her of such a price, but Persephone simply cannot. Spending her life by the bed of the sick watching them die, or waiting for them to die another day after she heals them, is not what she wants.

She would rather lie limp under some arrogant lord in the marriage bed than watch fever steal a child's last breath, if it really came down to it.

But she not plans on sticking around long enough for it to happen, though she'll never admit such a thing aloud.

"Persephone!" her lady mother chastises once the girl has finally reached the castle, wrapping her into a tight hug and pulling her towards the courtyard, signaling for the gates to be closed behind them. The tabby cat clings to Persephone's skirts at the sound of the gates' chains turning. "Your cheeks are so red, child. Here, take my cloak!"

"Mother, Mother," she tries to say, laughing despite herself as Demeter shrugs the thick wool frock from her shoulders and drapes it around Persephone's own. "I am fine. It is just the bite from rushing back; I am not chilled."

Demeter sighs, the lines around her mouth crinkling. Once they were carved from laughing; now it is from worry. "Sometimes I wonder if your father didn't whack you on the head one too many time during your lessons as a child," Demeter frowns.

'_Lessons'_ is what Demeter likes to call _training_, to make it seem a more demure thing. Before his passing when Persephone was just two and ten, her father had always treated her both as a lady and a soldier, the latter something she cherished dearly.

He was insistent she learnt to read and write the moment she was old enough to hold a pen; shoved books in her hands of explorers and fairytales and knowledge; encouraged her to write her own stories down which they would read together over super and he would always laugh and look so proud.

He was adamant she learnt to defend herself too, both in words and– despite her mother's distaste of the idea– physical means. He taught her how to be witty without slip of tongue. He taught her how to hold a bow and make the arrow true; how to hold a knife to a man's throat. He taught her how to handle a sword; how to use her small stature to her advantage in a fight. He taught her how to kill a man; he said only to use it if she absolutely had to.

Really, if anyone ever were to ask her, Persephone would say it is all her father's fault she seeks so much from the world. He told her that she could do whatever she wanted, for her soul was strong and no chains could hold her down.

Until right before he died, when he whispered to her in ragged breaths that he was sorry, that he had to make a deal to save her, to save their little family and their precious land of Eleusinian. That her dreams must stay dreams.

She knew not what he was talking about then; she still doesn't.

"I am glad he whacked me then," she says to her lady mother, dancing around the courtyard like a silly girl as she knows it annoys Demeter so. The tabby lets go of her skirts then, running off to join its siblings and mother in the stables for mousing. "Otherwise who would bring excitement to this dull place?"

Demeter shakes her head, swats Persephone on her backside and shoos the girl toward their quarters inside the castle walls. "You bring havoc, child. Not you need reminded of the incident with the chickens last week?"

Cheeks heating, Persephone simply pulls the door open with a dramatic bow for her mother to enter first. Demeter rolls her eyes at the antic. "No, Mother. I remember." Everyone more than likely remembers; they lost a week's worth of eggs after Persephone chased some wryly fox out of the coup with a pitchfork, scaring the hens into crushing their batches in the process.

Nervous bite of the lip, and Persephone follows in after her lady mother.

Their home is modest, even though Persephone's father was Lord of these lands, and by default making Demeter and Persephone the Lady heirs that now keep Eleusinian safe, since Demeter refuses to take a second husband. (A thing often highly gossiped about in Court, mind you; one reason Persephone hates going there so much. The belief that a woman needs a man to take care of lands in ridiculous. They do just fine on their own, thank you very much.)

There is a room for sitting and cooking in their main chambers, and then up the stairs a corridor that houses rooms for sleeping. There is a separate Grand Hall for feasts and parties, but her father said that was for everyone, not their own. "_You must share with your people, my little flower. The Gods shall smile upon you, for such a thing. And you shall smile too._"

It is a motto Persephone has always lived by.

And it is because of this that though Persephone is technically of noble blood, it is something no one can ever truly tell. She has dirt under her nails and mud on her skirts and mats in her curls just like any other peasant under a Lord's watch. And why shouldn't she? Even though she has the ability to look down upon her people, she never would; _all people are equals_, as her father would often murmur when the many arrogant lords prancing around Court were not listening. _We just live in a world where it cannot be shown_.

She pulls out a chair at their table now, crafted by old Hephaestus who lives in a castle out east with his beautiful wife, Aphrodite. His work is known throughout the realm as the finest– an honor to be bestowed with his gifts. Really, Hephaestus and Persephone's father were such good friends nearly everything in their house is crafted by the deformed smith. To her it is all a part of her home, where others in Eleusinian are afraid to touch for soiling its value. Sometimes she wants to laugh at that and point to the gouge in the middle of this table, where three years ago she went out into the yard, got an axe and swung it into the wooden top after Demeter had told her to stop acting like a heathen and more like a lady.

Rest assured the act earned Persephone a real tongue-lashing (and some physical lashings too), but in her mind it was more than worth it, to hear her lady mother screeching and having to call in Zelus, the old bull of a yard watchman, to get the axe out of the table because Demeter couldn't.

"Well, now that you are finally _in_," her lady mother sighs, hands resting in fists against her ample hips that Persephone has recently inherited much to her chagrin as men seem to look longer at her now, "I can tell you of the news I have received from Court."

Persephone groans. "Oh Gods, not _those_ people again."

"Persephone Despoina Kore Melivia Hagne Manthanos, do _not_ take such a tone! Tis not appropriate for a lady! And besides, '_those_ _people_' are _your_ people. Do you forget where you come from?"

How can she? Persephone is reminded none too often that Demeter is sister of the King of Elláda, and that her father is one of the Ten Great Men of the war that was fought before her birth for control of the Six Kingdoms. It's the only reason she and her lady mother are able to live the way they do. The King has never pushed his sister to remarry as Demeter has said it is an insult to her late husband's memory, and no one would dare to insult the memory of one of the Ten Greats that saved Elláda. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Persephone. Her uncle Zeus has been adamant she take a husband since she turned five and ten. Luckily Demeter has staved him off so far.

But just because they are family to the King, that does not keep the rest of the Court from gossiping about the Ladies Manthanos of Eleusinian. It's why Persephone detests _those _people so. Have they nothing better to do with their time than degrade others and abuse their people and servants? When you live in the lap of luxury, it seems lives are an easy thing to toss away to you, she guesses. Yet it has never been so for Persephone, nor her lady mother or lord father. She knows not why everyone else is so different.

"No, _Mother_," Persephone says through grit teeth. "I know my heritage."

"And your _place_, Persephone. You must always remember your _place_."

As Demeter turns then to grab something from the stool by the door, Persephone pulls a face and sticks out her tongue, letting her eyes cross. The expression is quickly wiped clear and replaced by one of placidity as Demeter turns back around, bringing with her a parcel of the Court, the royal seal already broken, harsh wax speckles stuck like blood to the bold writing contained within the note.

"We are to be in Court by the end of the week," says Demeter after a terse moment. "It seems you uncle, the King, wishes to celebrate your latest name day."

"That was nearly six moons ago!" cries Persephone, standing from the table with sudden defiance. "Surely there is more to all of this."

"Aye," Demeter says, her eyes looking as tired as they had the day that Lord Manthanos' coffin was lowered into the ground. "We couldn't stave a marriage off forever, Persephone."

* * *

Persephone feels like a stuffed pheasant in this dress.

It covers nearly every inch of her skin, slithering in shades of rich green like the fields back home in Eleusinian. Here, at the palace of Olympus, everything is a stuffy white or a flashy gold. She feels completely misconstrued, the wilding of the pack. She knew this would be the case though; it always has been. It is why she had so strongly insisted she wear boots beneath her gown despite her lady mother's outrage at such an idea.

In the end, Persephone won. Though, to be fair to Demeter, Persephone did cheat. The moment her lady mother's back was turned, Persephone slipped off the wretched slippers she'd been forced into and yanked on her old boots, the leather worn against her soles.

She is able to walk much easier in them now, as she and her lady mother make their way into Court, all eyes upon them.

Persephone knows that her parents were never _in love_ with each other, as arranged marriages usually result. But she also knows that they did _love_ each other, in a companionable and trusting sort of way. Persephone thinks they could never really have been _in love_ because her lady mother and lord father were such very different people. Demeter has always wanted to raise Persephone as a proper lady– even if she has never been set to let her be married off as a proper lady should be– while her father said that a child should have a mind to grow on its own. "_You cannot trick a flower to be another flower, Demeter_," he constantly sighed, holding a cup of giant's ale– they always made it special for him for his kindness towards them during the war– as he sat staring into the hearth's fire. "_If Persephone is to be a poppy then you can't turn her into a violet. No, the best you could try would be to dye her entirely purple..._"

Point being, Persephone doesn't for a second let anyone in this vile place perceive her as noble blood like them. She is not of their kind and shows it by way of her wretchedly 'barbarous' behavior– as her lady mother so puts it– but she is the niece of the King whether she wishes it so or not, she is of high importance when it counts. Which, at Court, it very much does.

This is wy people whisper about her and her lady mother as they walk toward the King's throne– _Oh there go Prometheus' women; how do they think they can handle those lands on their own? I heard that the mother takes other women to bed and that's why she won't marry a new husband. Would you look at the daughter; she's practically feral with all of that mud on her. Isn't that girl at the age that she should be married by now, with a babe in the womb? A disgrace. Outlandish. Treason. Gods, would you look at the wool of their dresses; that color makes Lady Persephone's rear look like a bull's_– at that last one, Persephone bristles.

She turns her keen eyes on the women who are snickering between themselves, a frown etching down at the corners of her lips like wilted daisy stems. The women notice her glaring and their faces go white. Persephone's reputation often precedes her; it is a bit useful in times like these. She gives one little sneer of her teeth, a wolf seeking prey, and the women back off into the crowd around them.

A smile threatens and she fights it; can't keep a ferocious reputation when you've got the look of a ninny about you.

When she and her lady mother reach the edge of Zeus' throne, they each bow their respects before straightening, Persephone not daring to meet the King's eyes. This is the only time in Court she will hold her tongue; act with respect, lest she lose her head.

Her uncle is a handsome man, she supposes, even in his cruel greed. He is wearing on in years by now, his once thick, flaxen hair now streaked with gray and thinned. There are still muscles under his shrift and vests, still bronzed skin though he must not spend many hours in the sun since most of a king's day revolves around politics held indoors. Age lines streak his handsome face, and his eyes are golden instead of the hazel green that her lady mother's are. He's known through Elláda as the most fetching king the lands have had in a good long while. And Zeus knows it, too. Word of his many affairs are not exactly kept secret.

"Lady Demeter, and her beautiful daughter, my niece, Persephone! Welcome, welcome. I trust your journey was comfortable?" Zeus asks, standing from his throne with broad hands clasped together before him. His wife, Queen Hera, remains seated in her spot, the same look upon her pretty face that she always has, as if she's smelled rotting corpses left to sun in the summer.

Princess Hebe sits next to her mother, looking nervous and fidgety as she always does. She's a good five years younger than Persephone, but ever fairer from remaining out of the sun her whole life. To her left is Prince Apollo, golden-haired and comely with a winning smile always upon his face. Persephone likes him alright; he has a lovely voice when he sings and was her playmate as a child when she came to Court.

On the other side of Zeus is Prince Dionysus. The whole Court says he's touched by madness; talks to himself and loves the sight of blood and chaos. He is to be the successor for the King, heir to the fortune. No one trusts for him to be a good king, but he is the eldest son and therefore entitled, unless one of Zeus' many bastards challenges him for the crown, but even then none are of noble blood so the posh lords and ladies of Elláda would imaginably rather give a mad king the crown.

Persephone settles one last cursory glance over the royal family, letting her eyes linger on the Queen, who is giving her look of warning.

_Oh Gods, please don't let it be,_ Persephone thinks. _Please don't let it be._

"Of course, my King," smiles Demeter demurely in answer to his question, nudging Persephone to bow in recognition with her. Persephone does, heart thumping in her chest because she knows, just _knows_ now that her lady mother was right– she cannot keep Persephone from marriage forever. "It is an honor to once again be in you and your family's presence, my brother."

"Yes," muses Zeus softly, stroking his golden-gray beard with thought. After a moment, he turns to the rest of the Court. "Please, everyone, may we commence with the festivities in honor of my niece and what a blossomed flower she has become!"

There is a small murmur through the crowd and Persephone can feel herself tensing under their judgmental scrutiny. She knows her body has developed in the last three years since she has been to court. Matron curves where there once was just gangly limbs and baby fat; birthing hips and a lush mouth for a lord to kiss. She much rathers it a lady at this point, because at least they are not as commanding... And yet she simply tries not to let her nerves show under the Court's eyes.

But then Dionysus laughs as if sensing her fear and she cringes, glaring into the mad Prince's silver eyes. "How old are ye now, Persephone?" Zeus asks, taking her attentions away from his son.

"Nine and ten, your Grace," Persephone says, keeping her gaze on the floor with an anxious lick of the lips. "If it pleases you."

Zeus continues stroking his beard, moving to sit back in his throne, crown wobbling on his head precariously. "Hmmm, I shalln't say it does please me, Persephone. While I thank the Gods you have made it to such an age in good health and, dare I say, beauty–" she will _not_ gag at his leering stare no matter how much she wants to, she tells herself– "it is most unusual for you to still be in your mother's house, without a husband in care of you."

"I help my mother tend to Eleusinian, your Grace," Persephone says, a bit defiantly. She chances a look up at the King's expression, finding one of distaste. Ladies are not supposed to act like lords; she knows this but she does not care. "It has been difficult since the passing of my father, and Mother very much needs my help."

"I do," injects Demeter, trying to beg the King with her eyes not to propose what they know is impending. "Persephone is a very smart girl; she is strong too and the people adore her. The lands would be lost without her."

"Aw, I expect they would," says Zeus, tilting his head to one side with a condemning smile. Persephone senses and almost empathetic glance from Queen Hera, married to Zeus before she was even fourteen, coveted throughout the lands for her beauty and given as the King's 'just reward' for leading the rebellion of the Ten Greats and their men against Ouranos the First so long ago. And then, quite simply, he cuts to the point of this entire meeting with just a handful of words. "Which is why, Demeter, I have found the perfect match for your daughter. A lord who shall give your land the funds it needs and stay in Eleusinian with you and Persephone– act as Master where Lord Prometheus can no longer."

"My King?" questions Demeter with wide, panicked eyes. "But my husband's honor, to be replaced by the title of another–"

"His title will not be replaced," Zeus says with annoyance, waving a hand in finality. "There will, however, be a new name introduced to the bloodline, as you and your husband unfortunately, never had any sons."

Demeter looks away in shame at the mention of such a thing, making Persephone's own blood boil. Her lady mother has always been mocked for the fact that after Persephone she could no longer bare children, and that she never gave Lord Prometheus a son to continue the Manthanos name and bring honor upon the family. Persephone has wanted to absolve that ever since she realized that maybe, just maybe, she can.

She wants to bring adventure and discovery to the title of her family, win battles in foreign lands, have stories told about the legacy she might leave behind. And while it would not count much because she is a woman, it will give her lady mother the pride she deserves to earn out of her child. And tell every one of these idiots of the Court that a son is not always the greatest gift; there can be honor in having a daughter too, and not just from marrying her off to some high lord.

But King Zeus, it seems, is ready to crush those dreams, and Persephone looks on in horror as his words sink in and she realizes escape could no longer be a reality. A lord to marry and rule over Eleusinian for her and her lady mother. _Over my dead corpse,_ Persephone thinks, a nervous aching in the pit of her stomach. She would rather fling herself from a cliff than let a little lordling come in thinking just because they are her husband they can take her lands and her people and do with them as they please. At least then, without her around, her lady mother would be left alone to care for Eleusinian as she has been the last seven years since her husband's death. It is obvious that the King has no more care of soiling Prometheus Manthanos' memory, but Demeter is infertile and no one will want her if Zeus tries to marry her off with Persephone absent.

_Without me, Zeus would have no excuse,_ Persephone thinks to herself, fear in her nerves._ Without me, Mother can rule Eleusinian the way Father wished for us to do without some lord coming in and ruining it all, treating our people the way everyone else in this cruel Court does their own._

"And what shall this new name be, my King?" Demeter finally asks, once she has swallowed her shame and can find her voice.

At the King's answer, Persephone goes pale.

"Marnamai," says Zeus rather arrogantly. "I have set plans for Persephone to marry Ares, son of the house's lord, and a very renowned soldier through the lands. He is an honorable pick for you, Persephone. Your babes shall be strong and beautiful, and he is exactly the lord Eleusinian needs to be brought back to top capacity."

"Of course, your Grace," Persephone says, a muscle in her cheek twitching. "I am grateful for your choice in husband for me."

_Throwing myself from a cliff sounds better and better._

House Marnamai, the cruelest house in the lands. Pallas Marnamai fought in the Titanomachy alongside Persephone's father; he said that Pallas is a cruel, bloody man with no sense of remorse. He slaughtered innocents as well as soldiers; raped women when it pleased him. _He is not an honorable man, my little flower,_ Prometheus always told her when she crawled into his lap and asked for stories of the war, Pallas Marnamai being brought into the plot.

The man's legacy has, of course, followed him. He married a native woman and had many a little lordling, Ares being the second son at six and twenty. Persephone has heard stories of the boy; of his merciless tactics in tournaments and battle fields. She knows down in her gut that he shall destroy Eleusinian once he has his greedy, bloodthirsty claws in it. And he shall destroy her, too.

"Splendid!" claps Zeus, and Dionysus snorts, the mad Prince for once not looking quite so insane as he asses Persephone's panicked look with an almost pitying smile. "It is one of the reasons I have brought you here, my niece. Ares has just returned from making treaty with our old enemies from the north– pesky rebellions they always threaten, those ones– and I should like for you to meet your betrothed. He will arrive tomorrow, and since you are already here in Court, we shall have a feast in recognition of your engagement!"

"Thank you, your Grace," Persephone says, as is expected of her. "I shall be forever indebted by your generosity."

"Nothing but the finest, for my beautiful niece," Zeus says with a twinkle in his eye, motioning a satyrian servant over to bring him a goblet of wine. Prince Apollo does the same, looking as bored with his father's antics as his mother. "For now, you will enjoy this gathering in honor of your latest name day. Make merry for your last night as a free woman!"

"Of course, your Grace," Persephone says.

She and Demeter bow then, returning back to the crowd to leave Zeus to his wine and a very ridiculous family, the rest of the lords and ladies in Court flocking around the royals in breathlessness.

"This cannot be," whispers Demeter once they are finally left on their own at the edge of the ball room, touching Persephone as if her daughter has already slipped through her fingers. "This cannot be."

"Aye, but it is, Mother," Persephone says, taking her lady mother's hands and in her own and kissing them softly before putting them once again at Demeter's sides. "I am to be married to Ares Marnamai, and the moment he steps foot in Eleusinian, nothing will be the same."

* * *

Demeter spends the rest of the night getting considerably drunk, after the announcement.

Persephone cannot blame her lady mother for such actions. She would take to drink herself, but has not a high tolerance for it. The last time she drank, it was at the encouraging of Prince Apollo when they were still young and simple playmates, her father alive and well. She ended up retching the wine and her dinner onto Prince Apollo's very expensive boots. He laughed it off, always the sunny Prince Apollo, but Persephone has never gotten over the embarrassment of it.

Eventually, Persephone can no longer take the Court around her. The people are gossiping– they knew of the engagement before even she– and it makes the air stuffy. Torches flicker on the marble walls, people dance in clusters of silken skirts and velvet shrifts, music plays from the minstrels in the corner and sounds like spiders creeping down the walls, Zeus laughs and laughs, the sound shattering the air and making the food in Persephone's mouth turn to overly sweet ash.

Even Queen Hera's famous ambrosia tastes of sadness, tastes of dreams lost.

Sighing, Persephone leaves her mother in the company of some of the more esteemed ladies of the court, like Lady Hestia and Lady Asteria, who have recently lost daughters of their own to engagement. Persephone trusts them enough in consoling her drunken lady mother that she slips out onto the ball room's balcony unnoticed, gasping in the fresh air of the night with relief.

Olympus has a great royal castle. It sits facing the sea and is made completely of white stone. It glitters even in the moonlight and Persephone can smell the salt of the ocean from where she stands, the sweetness of the Cypress trees and freesia in the castle gardens. This place was once home to Ouranos the First, until her father and the other Ten Greats took it, Zeus named King and inheriting these lands in the end.

_It should have been my father,_ Persephone thinks sadly. _He would have been a much more just king. Zeus only thinks of himself and the power he holds. His people starve and cower, always cower…_ The way her own people will the moment Ares Marnamai follows her back to Eleusinian with title of Lord. She knows he will rip everything her father worked to build into shreds; he will smother everything she holds dear like a weed sucking the life from a flower. And King Zeus will smile, because at least along the way Ares shall earn him an extra coin or two.

"To the Gods of old and new," Persephone whispers then, staring up at the sky and the stars twinkling by the hundreds that the Gods created in honor of this world's heroes. "Please, I beg of you, let this marriage not go through. I beg of you, for the sake of my mother, and of my father who I know has dined in your halls– Prometheus of the Ten Greats. He claimed this land in your names– surely you cannot take the legacy he has built away from him in just one swoop?

"Please; I have never asked of anything since I was an ignorant child. I have never asked for you to make my other dreams come true; I resolved to complete those alone. But now, if only you may keep this marriage from happening, I shall throw away every whim. This union shall mean death to the lands, to the people, to _myself_. Please, please, I beg of you…" She bites down on her tongue then, the hot prick of tears behind her eyes. Persephone has not cried since the day her father died; now will not be the time when she starts again.

Instead she rests her head against the balcony ledge, tendrils of hair slipping onto her heated skin. She should run away now, she thinks; stow onto the nearest ship and never look back. But if the King were to catch her, she will be tried for treason against his decrees. And to disgrace her lady mother in such a way...

It is only when Persephone hears the balcony's doors open and close does she finally look up again, thinking maybe it is her lady mother having come to find her and order her off to bed. But no, it is not her lady mother. Not at all.

It is a man, nearly two and a half heads taller than she. He is dark, somber; whispers of death around him. She can just make out the scar on his face in the moonlight, marring the entire left side so it makes it hard for him to blink, to smile. All of the Six Kingdoms can recognize that face.

Lord Hades Aidon.

She knows who Lord Hades is, of course. Ruler of the Underworlds of Elláda, master to the wraiths and the demons and the Erinyes. Some say he even has sovereign over the dead, but Persephone knows that isn't true. For, if he did, her father would have found his way out of the Underworlds and back to Persephone and her Lady Mother by now; she just knows he would.

"Lady Persephone," says Lord Hades, his voice deep and rough, a wolf's growl. "It is a pleasure." The bow he gives her seems to stir her miffed senses at his sudden appearance– he almost _never_ leaves his lands– and she curtsies in response.

"Milord," Persephone says, keeping her eyes to the ground lest she become enraptured in his dark gaze. She has only met him once, when she was just a child, and she remembers drowning in the small looks he had given her, irises so dark she could not tell where they ended and his pupils began. "A decency, as always."

He snorts, moves to stand by her on the balcony and she nearly cringes away. While he is very tall, Hades has not much bulk. His shoulders are wide, but his waist narrow. He has the lean muscles of a swordsman, the hands of a butcher. Her father always called him an honorable man, but Persephone is still weary of him. She has heard the tales– and while he never slaughtered innocents, he showed no mercy toward the rest. _He must have a thousand count on his head,_ people whisper. _No, no, surely more than that. He has blood to stain his hands an eternity._

"It is not much to look at, is it?" he remarks dryly, shocking Persephone. He is a lord known for silence, yet here he is making small talk.

"Milord?" she questions, brows drawing together.

"The sea," he says, waving a hand towards it. "It's far better in Lord Poseidon's reaches. Oceanus does a poor job of taking care of his half. The water should not be so black; it should reflect the moon."

"Oh," Persephone says rather stupidly; she knows not much about oceans. "I have always thought it is pretty."

"Of course you have," says Lord Hades, turning to look at her with an unreadable expression. "Your father's keep is in the middle of Eleusinian; no oceans to look at there, am I correct?"

"Yes, Milord," Persephone says, eyes darting down to her hands nervously. "I should– I should get back to my mother. She is probably looking for me."

The moment she moves foot to follow the lie, Lord Hades' hand reaches out and wraps around her own. Instantly, she stiffens. His grip is firm, callused, ice-cold. She thinks just one of his hands could encompass both of her own, and she swallows sudden fear down her throat. Lord Hades is looked at her, his eyes as dark as she remembers them. It grogs her mind, turns everything honeysuckle sweet.

"Milord?" she asks shakily, body and words wracked with tremors.

"You do not want to marry him, do you?" asks Lord Hades, his gaze intent.

"I–," Persephone looks for the right words, the words that will let her keep her head if this is some kind of ruse and Lord Hades intends to take all of this back to the King. "It would be an honor to do as the King wishes," she finally stutters out, heart ripping through her chest, corset too tight so as she might faint.

"Bullshit," says Lord Hades, surprising her with his rural language. She blinks, searches his gaze for bullshit of his own. She finds none. "You do not want to marry Lord Ares, do you, girl?"

"My name is _Persephone_," she says, a sudden flare of fierceness mixed into the adrenaline flooding her veins. It quickly simmers to fear once more at Lord Hades' scowl.

"_Persephone_," he says, the name rolling off his tongue like a curse. "Tell me the truth; your father said to always tell the truth, right?"

_Damn him._ "Yes, Milord."

"Tell me the truth, then, Persephone. Do you or do you not wish to marry Lord Ares?"

The hand he is not holding fast to clenches. Her mouth opens, closes, opens… How can she say the words aloud to him? She does not know this man, does not trust him. The only person she trusts is her lady mother, and perhaps her people. Nymphs and sprites are such flighty beings the barely remember her secrets to share. But Lord Hades, she knows he will remember her answer for the rest of his days.

And what shall he do with it?

Relief comes in the opening of the balcony doors once more. Lord Hades lets go of her instantly and turns as a bunch of drunken ladies stumble out, giggling to themselves and fawning over the King and Prince Apollo's good looks. Persephone takes it as her chance of escape, moving past the ladies and into the ball room, finding her mother and dragging her towards their chambers, wanting to leave this whole night behind them.

But not before she catches one last glance of Lord Hades, standing in the balcony's doorway and looking at her intensely, eyes shining in the firelight.

* * *

That night she dreams of her father dying, of Ares being the one to dive a sword into Prometheus' heart, a faceless being that has the laugh of King Zeus. She dreams of lechery and famine and cruelty, of dark eyes that shine in the fire. Of broken dreams and sinking ships, the sailors crying for salvation. Raped women and killed babes, the Gods who have abandoned them all because of their greed, the one thing the Gods never intended to give. It is a human device; something they made all on their own.

But most of all, she dreams of blood. Of the ruby slip of it down her palms, the taste of pomegranates infecting her tongue. She dreams of crystal flakes of cold, a shiver she has never felt now deep in the marrow of her bones, coating her limp body in ice. The flakes turn everything a pure white, but the blood turns it all red, and the Gods never do anything; they let it all fall to ruin.

When she wakes in the morning it is to a bed of sweat and wild hair. She washes her face in the basin, looks at herself in the foggy mirror. Today she shall meet her future husband. She has to stop herself from bringing with her a knife to slit his noble-blooded throat.


	2. Part Two

**A/N:** Hey everyone, I know it took me a while to update this, but I was a bit focused on one of my other fics, hence the neglect. I apologize for that, and hope to update more than once a month with this fic. Any questions or comments with this part, do ask.

* * *

Part Two

* * *

Persephone is long past agitated by the time she no longer has to touch Ares Marnamai, her future husband and Lord to Eleusinian. She has danced with him since the moment the engagement party started, and the golden lordling cannot keep his hands to himself. "You are very beautiful, Lady Persephone," he said that very morning when the King introduced the two of them for the first time, and he has kept saying it all night, hands slipping down onto her rear and touches brushing her breasts.

"Is there not anything else you like of me, Lord Ares?" she asks acidly as they twirl and twirl round the dancing floor, eyes staring hard into the unmoving gold of his. Ares is the color of the heroic Jason's famed stolen fleece in everything surface, whereas underneath she imagines he is painted with greed and lust and gluttony.

"What else is there?" he replies, a tight smile of bow-string lips. Everyone is watching them, including the King, and she knows he wishes not to make a bad impression. Title and appearance is everything to a man like Ares.

Persephone, on the other hand, does not care what the Court thinks of her, which is apparent by her loud scoff. "_Anything else _matters," she hisses, disentangling her hand from Ares' and stepping back, removing her waist from his groping fingers. "I do believe I would rather not dance anymore, Mi'lord. I am going to go…over there now." She gives a vague gesture of her hand towards the west corner of the room, leaves him with a haughty smile and skips away, trying not to laugh too much at the lordling's startled face.

The murmurs she hears hold her head high for her, gaze steadfast away from the King who is probably too busy pawing at a maenadian serving girl to have noticed the spectacle anyways.

Ares is handsome, of course, which means Persephone should like him. He is strong and mighty and glorified, but he is entirely too shallow and harsh. The calluses on his hands when he took hers this morning to kiss her knuckles in greeting had set coils in her stomach, slithering snakes choking a rose. They felt nothing like Lord Hades' had the night before, unyielding yet gentle in a startling sort of way.

All Lord Ares could talk of since they met was her beauty, what lovely babies they will have together. _Strong sons_, he wants strong sons. No whimsy-headed daughters like her.

He said he shall bring profit to Eleusinian again; not life but _profit_ by putting the people to harder work. What use have nymphs and sprites for profit, Persephone can't help but wonder. They are soft creatures, only concerned with follies and love. Profit shall not satisfy them; it may fill their bellies but it will not sustain their spirits. And Persephone knows a strong body is nothing when a broken spirit is attached.

_Thesis give me strength. Give strength to us all_, she prays.

And then sighing, she whirls her skirts about her– her best ones of course, with the pretty golden lace on the hems and bosom, the kind Ares vows to keep her always dressed in even though she said she hates them– and retreats to a completely different corner from which she told Ares she would go. Her lady mother is off with Lady Hestia and Lady Harmonia and will not patronize her for it, too entranced in jabber about the best ways to irrigate crops and methods to reduce work for their people without the other ladies' husbands around to hear. No men to chastise them for talking like men– it is the way Persephone's father told her to live her life, if she ever wants any freedom.

She has a feeling that being married to Lord Ares will make it nearly impossible to have such a thing. He would hunt her down like a hound were she to try and wonder off for even a moment of respite. She will be nothing but his bitch, once their union is completed. Her people his slaves. _I should run,_ she thinks to herself for the hundredth time this day. _I should run and never look back._

But how can she disgrace her lady mother in such a way, her family? Before, when she was not betrothed under the order of the King, things were more unpretentious. The only titles she would leave behind would be that of her nobility in Eleusinian and her lady mother could make an easy excuse for Persephone's absence, claim she had joined the Maidens of Athena and thus been called to travel. Persephone could have sailed the world and brought glory and myth to her family without anyone having known what she had really done until it was already written in stone.

And yet she has waited too long for any of this to happen. All of those nights she told herself before sleep '_just one more day, just one more day in my home with Mother and Father's memory_' have condemned her to code of honor. If she leaves now, disobeys the King, she will forever have the title of a traitor. A deserter. A wench that has brought disgrace upon her family's house.

No matter how much she longs for her freedom, she will not shame her father's name in such a way. She could never in her life do that, not when honor was the cipher Lord Prometheus Manthanos valued most.

Unbidden, hot tears suddenly spring to her eyes at the realization that her life is to be tossed away in the bed of an arrogant lord, sitting prettily at his side as he slaves her people while she prettifies to stone, like Queen Hera. She sniffs, wipes the water away from her cheeks with quivering fingers as she leans back against the marble walls of the Olympian palace, chanting to herself again and again that she shall not let these people see her broken. The Court can do all it likes to whip her into a woman's place, but she will not give them the pleasure of showing they have won.

"It would not be traitorous, if the King thought you stolen instead of run."

The deep, rough voice in her ear makes Persephone nearly jump out of her skin. She turns startled eyes upon the man now standing at her side, shrouded in shadows. Lord Hades looks much the same as last night, with his perpetual scowl and unreadable expression. He is dressed as formally as all the rest of the men in Court, disbanding the bright colors of the season for black, like his hair and the hue of his stare. Coupled with his tanned skin, it makes an eerie sight.

"And how would they believe me stolen?" she asks, forgetting her tongue for but a moment, yet it is enough that Lord Hades' gaze grows more intense upon her, causing her hands to tremble anew.

"Why, I would steal you, of course."

* * *

That night, lying warm in her barrowed bed, Persephone tosses and turns under the weight of Lord Hades' offer, her lady mother sound asleep and ignorant of anything that happened at the party just hours before. Demeter came back to their bedchambers drunk like the past night, barely noticing Persephone and her red, tear-sore eyes while she collapsed into bed, sleep taking her.

Persephone shudders as she remembers the feel of Lord Hades' hand around hers, pulling her from the ball room and into the hall when no one was looking, his lips at her ear with words of treason, her heart hammering in her chest _is this a trick is this a trick is this a trick _and her mind soaring with the possibility of escape, of freedom.

"_No one would know it is I, of course. The Court would believe you taken by a bandit for ransom, and once word of your untimely death escapes, you will have long boarded a ship, on your way to lands you have only ever dreamed of, Persephone._"

"_How do you know of my dreams, Mi'lord?_"

"_I see them in your eyes, sweetling. Your soul was made for more than this world, and I am not one to refuse the whims of a soul._"

"_You are deceiving me._"

"_No. I speak of nothing but the truth. I made your father a promise, a long time ago– that I would always take care of him and his kin. I swear on my life by this. Prometheus saved someone I hold very dear during the Great War; it is the least I can do to honor his memory by making sure his child finds contentment as he wished them to._"

"_But I am a woman._"

"_Yes. But you are also a _soul_. And as I said, I am not one to refuse the whims of your likes._"

"_But my mother–_"

"_She may never know of any of this. She would rather see you married to that unwitting swine of a lordling and watch her lands, her people ruined than lose her daughter. You must be dead to her, to everyone if you agree to this Persephone. It is the only way._"

He told her they would leave that morning, before Persephone and her lady mother departed for home to Eleusinian, damned to wait a dreaded eight months until Persephone's wedding and Ares Marnamai's takeover of their lands. '_One night_' Lord Hades said. One night for her decision to be made.

_ It should be easy, _Persephone thinks to herself, eyes mapping the rips in the canopy above her bed. _I should run, like I have always wanted._ Yet this opportunity, it is not one at freedom, but a new life entirely. She shall be dead to this world, Persephone Manthanos no more. The honor she wishes to bring her family will lie in a casket without her body for claim. Her name will not be her own anymore. She shall never see her precious lady mother again, Demeter's warm arms and protective words and worrying hysterics. She will never take another step in Eleusinian, the soils of her home a stranger now, her people mourning for a dead girl. Elláda will be forbidden to her, if she agrees to this.

_But there are many other worlds for you to call home…_

Lord Hades promised her a ship of her own, a small crew. Enough gold to start her way in the world, a debt he said she need not repay. "_For your father,_" he explained, ageless eyes in an aging face. "_I never knew a better man._"

And a secret– he promised her a secret always kept.

* * *

By the time Persephone makes her choice, the moon is sinking in welcome of the sun, Selene kissing her brother Helios good morning.

Persephone pulls off her sleeping shift and stuffs it beneath the mattress to look as if she were taken in it, soon replacing the thin fabric with a pair of buck-skinned leggings and a leather jerkin– once worn by her father– that her lady mother didn't know she packed otherwise Demeter would have thrown a fit at the idea of Persephone dancing around Court in the garments. She dons her hunting boots, a thick cloak the color of the meadows of Eleusinian that she arrived in. She does not take any of her known possessions– cannot chance the looks of running– but allows herself just a simple hunting knife that once belonged to her father stashed between her boot and ankle is she to run into any trouble and needs to defend herself.

While she feels she can trust Lord Hades, one can never be too certain with a soldier named under the Lord of Death.

She leaves the bed unmade as he told her to do, stuffs her slippers in with the sleeping shrift, makes it look as if she got up in the middle of the night to wander the castle halls and was stolen away, the damsel in distress.

It takes her a long time to say goodbye to Demeter. She runs a small, shaking hand down the sleeping lady's cheek, kisses Demeter's bowed lips that have thinned with age. Her lady mother is so deep in sleep she does not stir. And what Persephone leaves her lady mother with is a simple crown of flowers thrown at the foot of Demeter's bed, stitched in laurel and poppy and violet and rosemary, her lady mother's favorites. "Goodbye, Mama," Persephone says, allowing herself to cry silently as she leaves the room.

_I love you. I am sorry._

Words she thinks shall never be said again.

* * *

Lord Hades awaits her in the royal stables, as he said he would. She dodges the palace guards by slipping through the halls and passageways as silent as a meadow flower's opening, grown surreptitious from years of playing hide-and-seek with the limoniads in the Eleusinian meadows. Lord Hades has planned it so that they meet when the guards are switching shift from night to morning legions.

She walks into the stables on light feet, teeth worrying chapped lips. Lord Hades stands there in his blackened riding leather, back to her as he brushes the mane of a stallion colored like midnight. For a moment, her steps falter. Can she really do this? Dreams are only dreams after all, but reality, reality is something far more terrifying.

"It is not too late to go back," Lord Hades says without turning to look at her.

A question rises on her lips– _how did he know she was here?_– but her throat feels made of sandpaper and her tongue is dry and she cannot ask the words aloud. Instead she simply stares at him, spring eyes and messy hair still damp from the sweat of half-sleep. Her curls are loose of the braids the servant girls wove them into yesterday as they prepared her to meet Lord Ares. She looks wild, the way she feels with all of the emotions roiling inside of her.

"No, I cannot not," she finally says to him.

At this, he turns to look at her, regards her in a careful sort of manner. For the first time in her life, she feels as if someone is seeing her for a person and not a fragile thing. "No, I guess you can't," he finally says, the gruff of his voice warm in the chill of the morning air.

With a deep breath, she closes the space between them. Her senses feel shrouded and she can smell the hay and smoke on him, like a burning house. Without word, Lord Hades hands her the reigns of a fiery maned mare, the horse whinnicking as the Lord of the Underworlds helps Persephone step into the saddle.

"Whose horse is this?" Persephone asks softly, because it certainly is not one of the four that pulled her and her lady mother's carriage to Court.

Lord Hades glances at her but a moment before mounting his own black stallion, its braided mane the color of snow and nostrils flaring hot, impatient breath into the morning air. "Lady Eris' I believe. She looks the strongest of them all."

"Will people not notice that you and I are both missing and realize it was not a bandit at fault for my disappearance, but the Lord of the Underworlds himself?" Persephone asks as they trot out of the stables, voice barely above a hiss.

"No," says Lord Hades. "According to registry, I left in my carriage last night after your engagement party was finished. I am always the first to leave these events, so no suspicion was upheld. Many nobles are to depart this morning now that the festivities are done with in the first place. A stolen horse shall just confirm your capture, as well the note of ransom I arranged to be delivered in two weeks' time."

"But why kidnap of all schemes? Who would wish to take _me_, of all the nobles here? I have nothing to offer," Persephone rambles aloud, eyes fluttering as a bird caws and flies from the grove of cypress trees to her left.

Lord Hades simply turns to stare at her then, his scar prominent in the light on the morning horizon. "You are the daughter of one of the Ten Greats, Persephone. You are betrothed to the son of another Great Man, and the King's niece. The price of your safe return would be more than any robber could dream– I am surprised an attempt at your abduction has not been tried already."

"But this is not abduction," Persephone says. "Is it?"

The humored attempt of grin that appears upon Lord Hades' lips at her words lasts but a moment, as suddenly there is the sound of marching farther down the path they have taken towards the palace gates. With a move she hardly anticipates, Hades has grabbed the reigns of her horse as well as kept hold of his own and steers them into the cypress grove, quieting the horses that panic at the abrupt motions they have been put through.

"Shh," Hades soothes, his stallion and Lady Eris' mare stamping their hooves just once more and then there is stillness. Persephone can feel her heart beat in her chest, eyes wide in dread. If they are caught, what shall it mean for them? Lord Hades is a ruler in his own right, but he does not have the title of King, not here in Olympian dwellings. If they are both tried for treason, then she is sure they will lose their heads.

Her fears are calmed by a warm hand upon her shoulder, Lord Hades holding her gaze with solemn promise of safety as the guards pass them by on their way for morning watch. She lets out a breath she did not know she was holding, gulping in relief as Lord Hades steers them out of the grove and back onto the path again. It winds to the palace borders, and for a moment Persephone wonders how they will make it through the castle gates when abruptly, Lord Hades turns them in the direction of the stone walls that keep the castle protected.

"Where are we going?" she hisses.

"You will see," he says, eyes shining in the morning light as the sun comes higher upon the horizon, threatening to take away the shroud of night they so desperately need.

_Not yet, Eos, _Persephone prays. _Please, not yet…_

* * *

They bed down just shy of the border between Olympus and Eleusinian, by a babbling stream that she hears even from the hill they lie upon.

A day's worth of riding has made Persephone's limbs numb with exhaustion. Lady Eris' mare, which Persephone has taken to calling Fury, is as worn as Persephone is and perhaps twice as tired. Yet Lord Hades seems not shaken in the slightest, his stallion that he calls Charon giving a whinny of boredom when Lord Hades ties him to a low branch to rest for the night.

Fire is built in silence, much how the rest of the day went. Persephone became quickly aware that Lord Hades is one apt for closed lips. She does not mind, not truly. The moment they escaped the castle lines undetected and heads intact an immense weight felt lifted from her chest. They traveled by back road and did not stop except for once to drink and let the horses feed. Lord Hades had warned of a possible search party sent out to look for her, which had been enough reason to ride until she could no longer.

Knowing her lady mother, Demeter would have the whole King's Guard sent for Persephone's return if she could.

There is a loaf of bread and dried lamb's meat to share between the two of them for dinner, and though her belly's full and the fire is strong, Persephone cannot help but shiver. Winter fast approaches, threatening to bite at her skin. She has heard of frost before, but it does not reach this part of the world, or so wise men say. She would like to wager against them, with how much her limbs now shake.

"Here," says Lord Hades, his first words to her since they remounted earlier in the afternoon. A canteen is tossed her way, sloshing with liquid inside. "Drink. It shall warm you."

Persephone does not question him, desperate for any kind of heat she may find. Her sleeping pallet below her is too flimsy, even the furs not thick enough to her likings to be able to help with the chill. If magic drink will fix this, she'll more than gladly bear the burn it makes sliding down her throat with the first sip. After the second she realizes exactly what it is that Lord Hades has given her– honey mead.

Most of the time it is a drink made for peasants, though she has heard it is stronger than wine. The nymphs back home often got drunk upon it, especially the nyads at their fertility festivals during the months of spring.

A third sip and she coughs, liquor too strong as she wipes a hand over her mouth and hands the satchel back to Lord Hades, heat spreading through her limbs from both blush and liquor as he eyes her skeptically. She leans back onto her sleeping pallet with a sigh, eager to escape his gaze as her head starts to go fuzzy.

"Mother never let me drink; she said it was un-ladylike," Persephone says by way of explanation about her antics._ And any time I do drink I make a complete arse of myself anyways. _With afterthought, she can't help but give a snort in notion. "Gods, if Mother could see me now, how furious she'd be…"

"I do not understand why she always wished you to be a lady if she never intended for you to marry," says Lord Hades, lending Persephone that hard, level stare from last night when he'd told her he could take her away from all the madness.

"All in the name of honor, I guess," Persephone shrugs. "My father never really adhered to the idea though; he is where I learned my swording from. Archery too. And hunting and fighting and cursing…" she ticks off on her fingers.

"You know how to act a man?" Lord Hades smirks.

Persephone smiles right back. "Why of course. All Mother ever taught me was how to stich a corset and not to burn the bread. Though, that second lesson never worked well. I always made the dough and she cooked it. One of the many reasons I have never thought being a lady is something keen for me."

"You have the beauty of one," says Lord Hades seriously, and Persephone would like to blame the renewal of forming blush on her cheeks from the liquor. "You would have made any Lord a fine wife."

A bubble of laughter suddenly grows in her chest and she tries her best to trample it. "You mean like Lord Ares?" she asks, and at Lord Hades' sudden glare adds, "I thought not."

There are terse moments of silence between them after that. Persephone once again reaches for the honey mead and takes a long, hearty sip that shoos away any remaining chill in her bones. She snuggles softly into the pallet below her, pulling furs from her waist up around her neck as she lies, eyes on the fire where it flickers to and fro, like a maiden dancing before the light of the moon Goddess, Selene.

"Well, my lands would be lucky to have a lady such as you ruling them," Lord Hades finally says, just as Persephone's eyes are beginning to droop.

She is so tired that she does not think much of his admission, instead simply saying, "Such a kind offer, but I am not meant for ruling. I never have been, and I never will."

Her foggy mind registers Lord Hades trying to counter her then, but she is already drifting to sleep. It is not until she wakes with a groggy, aching head in the morn that she realizes just how powerful his words truly were last night. Had he been making her an offer? No, no, there is no way in the Sixth he had been. Lord Hades, after all, is the one proposing her the gift of freedom. Surely giving her invite to be his lady wife goes against all such pretense?

With a shake of her head, Persephone decides to forget his words completely and rises from her pallet. The sun is yet on the horizon and Lord Hades is still asleep, snoring softly as the embers of last night's fire glow. She cannot help but smile at his little hitches of breath; in sleep Lord Hades seems so much less burdened by life than she often sees upon him in waking world. The lines on his face are all but disappeared and his eyes flutter behind their lids, rapt in dream, Morpheus being kind to the man's lonely soul. Even his scar no longer looks intimidating, but a simple part of him.

Sighing, Persephone slips away from the campsite to relieve herself, the honey mead having gone straight through her bladder. _Better than to my gut,_ she thinks sleepily, happy that she didn't wake up in the middle of the night retching. She once again remembers the few other times she has had alcohol before, how much Prince Apollo had laughed over her embarrassment from retching onto his boots.

After finishing her business, she travels down to the stream to clean herself up, the dirt of a long riding day having settled into her skin in an annoying itch. The stream is cold in the early morning light, so much so that Persephone can see the fog of her breath as she scrubs at her hands and face and chest, stifling a surprised squeak when some of the freezing water slips into the valley between her breasts, sending chill down her spine anew.

Behind her, a twig suddenly snaps.

She whirls with a hand on her father's old hunting knife stashed between her ankle and boot, ready for defense before Lord Hades' stoic face registers and she calms. Bite of the lip and she turns back to the stream, bringing handfuls of water up to rinse the sleep from her mouth before finally letting large swallows slip down her throat, the cold now inside of her chest instead of just on it.

Lord Hades kneels down next to her after a moment, washing the dirt from his own skin. She glances to his hands no longer concealed in riding gloves, where there are calluses and scars from sword and knife and battle. They are not as outstanding as the one on his face, but each tells its own story she finds herself wishing to hear.

_That is not my place to ask, _she chides herself softly, running wet fingers through her mangled curls to try to get them to stick tame. Even if it were her place, she probably would not ask him. The more she learns to know this man, the more she will get attached and she cannot let such frivolous whims be enacted upon.

After all, Lord Hades' stoics may not impress the other women of Court, but she finds a certain allure in him, a certain sadness for how lonesome he seems by the way he is always so quiet, so aloof. She has known what it is like to feel by yourself ever since her father's passing; she hates to see it written so plainly on another soul's face. If she could cure it for this man she would, but she cannot stay with him.

It is not a part of their deal.

"What is it?"

His voice shocks her– mind gone from its wonderings so her eyes connect with his. "Nothing," she says primly, standing from the bank to walk back to their campsite and bring down Fury so she can water. "Nothing at all."

* * *

Their travels are much the same as the day prior. They ride in silence and she glances at him just, trying not to let Lord Hades see. He is such a solemn man, riding strong and tame upon his stallion without even a flicker of emotion twisting at his scarred face.

Persephone wonders if this is how he looks in battle, and knows that if it is, there is no wonder most people of Elláda fear him. Lord Hades' name is whispered like a curse amongst the peasants, afraid he will darken their door and slaughter hundreds in his wake. Persephone would like to tell them all that they are wrong. Her father always said to her it had been Lord Kronus to fear, with his scythe at the ready in battle and the blood of his victims dripping from his teeth.

Lord Kronus, who was the one originally chosen for King once the Titanomachy had ended. Lord Kronus, who had mysteriously died not in battle, but a heady man in his sleep before he ever touched the crown.

There are rumors King Zeus poisoned him, killed his very own father without thought. Demeter will not speak to Persephone of such things, and Prometheus never did either. The corruption of politics has always been something they wish to keep her from, which she thinks ignorant considering the King is in fact her uncle. She wonders if, perhaps, Lord Hades would tell her the truth were she to ask?

And she is about to find out, when suddenly there is howling from the trees in the distance.

It is well past noon. They stopped just once to eat and water the horses, as quick as they could before mounting again. Dusk has settled on the horizon now, the perfect time for wolves to feast. But the animals are not overly common in Eleusinian, simply starving packs that take on lone rabbits rather than men; Persephone knows these lands like the back of her hand and is not worried about threat. The only thing they have to fear is that their plan goes wrong and that the King sends someone to hunt them down.

Persephone has been kidnapped, after all. Or at least that is the illusion they have given the Court, according to Lord Hades. Once again Persephone thinks of how she would not be surprised if Demeter sent the entire Kings' Guard after them. How they have not caught up to Lord Hades and Persephone by now is a mystery to her. By on second consideration, she remembers the tales of Lord Hades' stealth during the Great War, his attack strategies that won many battles. Some even say he had a helm that made him invisible, given to him by the Giants of the Underworlds.

And so Persephone suddenly does not doubt that Lord Hades can carry them away to his lands and set her free without detection quite easily.

They stop for the night as the sun winks away, Helios welcoming his sister with a sky-kiss. Persephone ties Fury to the low branch of a tree as Lord Hades does the same with Charon. The Lord's shoulder touches Persephone's softly with the movement; she is aware of the brute stretch of his muscles, the way he could break her with a flick of his finger, thumbsnap of the reed of her neck. Somehow, it does not scare her. She has grown up with dangerous men all of her life and their presence has become a comforting constant, memories of mending the wounds of fierce Eleusinian soldiers after battle and their grateful smiles.

Supper consists of crusting bread and bruised crab apples from a nearby tree Lord Hades gives Persephone more than he takes for himself and she stares at him in wonder for a moment, spring eyes bright under the moon. "You are not like other lords," she says before she can mind her tongue.

He turns to look at her over the edge of his canteen, brows lifting in humor.

She blushes bright, skin heating in the chill of air even through the Eleusinian breeze. She is handling the honey-mead better tonight than the last, but still she blames the alcohol for the sudden heat in her skin. "What I mean is well…" She stammers, nervous bite of the lip. "Nevermind."

"You mean I am not as pretty?" Lord Hades asks after a moment, sets his canteen at his hip and wipes a darkly gloved hand over his mouth.

Persephone glances up from picking at the frayed edges of her jerkin, expression pulled in surprise. She has not given much consideration to the look of him besides his living intimidations, but now that he has made comment towards such a thing she cannot help but stare.

"No," she says after a moment, flush deepening as she admits, "I think you are very handsome." She likes the way his hair curls around his shoulders in dark waves, and how his eyes are not the black she originally thought them to be, but a somber gray like death stones that mark graves.

Lord Hades' face twists into a mask of indifference and, quite possibly, anger. "You are mocking me," he says then, glaring at her.

Persephone is confused by it, grows slightly irritated herself that he thinks she would go so low as to insult him. "I am not," she insists. "I meant what I said, or I would not have said it."

Lord Hades must see the honesty in her eyes then, the hardened edge of truth, for his eternal scowl seems to soften at the corners of his torn mouth. "Forgive me," he says, turning his eyes to the fire he lit when they settled down upon their sleeping mats. "You are the first woman I have heard that from that does not want something in return."

And again Persephone can see the loneliness in this great ruler of a man, this hero of the Great War. For he may be a warrior, a soldier aligned with the name of death, but he is just a man in the end. And all men seek companionship, someone to hold them in the night when they wake of bloody nightmares.

Her father told her that once, and she has never forgotten.

Softly, Persephone reaches out, a morning glory opening to the dark. She knows how risky this is, how easily she could get attached to him and never want to leave in this moment. But he just looks so very sad, and she cannot let it be.

Lord Hades flinches when she tries to touch him, but only just. With a small look of reassurance, Persephone grips his face, turns his eyes to her own. "I meant what I said," she repeats herself, running tentative fingers down the scar marring the side of his face. The flesh is puckered, but almost soft, burning. "And I also meant that you are not like other lords in your _temperament_."

Lord Hades' eyes widen at this, his breath a whisper against her palm as Persephone pulls away to lay her hand in her lap once more. For a moment, Lord Hades looks after that hand, then shakes his head and asks, "And what do you mean by that, Mi'lady?"

"You are…_kind_," Persephone says, beginning to fiddle with one of her ragged braids. "You are doing me a strong justice in all of this. Though you promised my father my happiness, you did not have to go so far in the deal. And even then, you are treating me with civility upon this trip. I cannot thank you enough for all of the risk you have taken for me, or the civility in which you handle my company."

He gazes in unreadable emotion, fingers curling against his thighs. "It is not a problem," he says sincerely. "I knew the moment I saw you that you were meant for grander things than becoming wife to an abusive little lordling."

"What taught you to see me as an equal so easily?" Persephone asks then, flare of the tongue. "I am a woman. Men do not treat women as you do I."

Lord Hades smiles, a genuine smile with secrets between his teeth. "I was taught well as I grew. My mother told me all beings were created equal when the Gods made us, but man broke his vows to keep the world running in such a manner."

"My father said nearly the same thing," Persephone grins.

"Your father was a good man," Lord Hades says. "One of the finest I've ever met. And his daughter is quite the treasure as well."

His words leave Persephone with a small solace, an unfamiliar ache in her chest. Lord Hades is looking at her with a gleam that she does not understand it is somewhat the way Lord Ares looked at her in pleased awe when they first met, and yet entirely different. Lord Hades sees her not as a body, but a soul.

Blinking, she realizes her mouth has gone dry, looks down to her lap and blushes once more. "I am tired," she says after a moment.

"Then you should sleep," Lord Hades answers, and Persephone nods, pulls back her furs and settles under them with a yawn. The moment her head is against the ground she realizes how true her statement was she is exhausted. "We will make it past Eleusinian by the end of the morrow," Lord Hades says. "Sleep well Mi'Lady, for it is your last night in your homeland."

Persephone does not let him hear her small sob at his words.

* * *

In the morning, when Persephone wakes, it is to a wolf at her bed, Lord Hades' dark eyes upon her in panic, a wild girl holding a knife to his throat.


	3. Part Three

Part Three

* * *

The girl is somewhere between a cross of wild and otherworldly. She holds the knife against Lord Hades' neck with a certain elegance, a craft all her own.

Persephone stares on at the scene with wide, panicked eyes as a dire wolf the size of an elk and color of burnt wood sits calmly next to her, breathing dangerous breath. "Please," she says after a moment, scared for Lord Hades' safety more than her own. "Do not hurt him."  
"Why?" asks the girl, a strange cluck of tongue.

There are small markings all along her skin, flesh traced in black, inky symbols from new and old. Persephone recognizes them as the runes of the Gods, specifically Selene and Nyx, the patron Goddesses for womenfolk. The girl's hair was a mass of disheveled curls and she is much paler than Persephone, despite the fact most people in Eleusinian often have complexions of dark.

"Because he is my friend," Persephone says, watching the apple of Lord Hades' throat bob beneath the blade pressing into his skin.

There is a slight trickle of blood rolling down the man's flesh where the knife has nicked him in probable struggle, knowing his temperaments. Persephone blinks as it clots in the stubble of his beard, meets the wild girl's eyes again, a feral sort of forest color that one could become lost in if they are not careful.

"Friend?" scoffs the girl. "You cannot be friends with _men_," she spits the word like a curse and the dire wolf bristles next to Persephone on alert. "They want nothing but the heat between your legs, girl. Are you daft to that?"

Persephone glances to Lord Hades then, sees that look upon him once more, that look that is awe of soul and not body as he stares at her. Even through the steel of his nerves it is palpable, and she is reminded of all the freedom he has promised her. "Not him," Persephone says. "He is different."

The wild girl is unconvinced, and the horses whinny from their posts as the dire wolf growls in Persephone's ear. "He has you numb in the head like all the others," the girl says. "I should slit his throat now and save you the trouble."

"No! Please!" Persephone cries as the girl presses her blade sharper into Lord Hades' throat and he grunts, hands gripping the wild girl's arms in sudden panic and adrenaline of the threat of death. "Please!"

"Why?" the girl asks again, earlier question laced with malice. "Give me one good reason."

And though Persephone has never used such a threat before and does not like the words that next come out of her mouth, she says them anyways only if for Lord Hades' sake. "Because I shall have you condemned to death."

The girl laughs at that, the dire wolf at Persephone's side wagging its tail at the twinkling base of a sound. "And how do you propose such a thing will happen, girl?"

"I am Persephone Manthanos," Persephone says despite Lord Hades' sudden glare of warning at giving her name away. "I am second-ruler to Eleusinian behind my mother, Lady Demeter Manthanos, and what I say, _goes_." She has never used her title in a position of power before, but there are pricks of blood on Lord Hades' skin and she cannot, absolutely _cannot_ stand to see more.

Without him, her future burns to ruins.

Without him, she thinks she shall fall apart.

And the words seem to sink into the wild girl's senses after a moment. She does not let Lord Hades go, but loosens the push of the blade into his throat as he breathes a sigh of relief. "The Ladies of Eleusinian," the girl says. "Ruling without men?"

"Not for long," Persephone says, as she can see a spark of humor in the girl's eyes and intends to use it to the fullest. "I am engaged to marry a lordling from the north who would destroy our lands once in position as my husband and Lord of Eleusinian. The man you are so close to killing right now is helping me escape, you see. If I am not here to marry that lordling, then the lands shall stay in my mother's possession as she is too old to remarry. If you kill that man under your knife now, Eleusinian will be lost."

"And who _is_ this noble man, then?" asks the girl, eyeing Lord Hades with a skeptical eye. "He is no common folk, and must be very skilled to steal away such an important woman."

"He is a knight from the Underworlds," Persephone lies quickly, in case this girl decides to report everything else she has already been told back to the King. While Persephone thinks no such thing likely this wild girl does not seem fond of male authority she does not want to chance Lord Hades' name. She has already put herself in a precarious situation and does not need to do the same for him; it is of damage enough that any moment the poor man could have his throat slit.

"_Sure_ he is," drawls the wild girl, and at last she lets Lord Hades go.

His body stumbles forwards from the shove, hands landing on either side of Persephone's tucked knees as he glances up at her with dark, mangled gaze. She follows his line of sight then down to the knife stashed at his hip and knows he intends to use it within the next moment, but she shakes her head even if Lord Hades were to take out the wild girl, there is still a giant dire wolf for them to then contend with and Persephone could make a heavy wager that the animal will tear them to bits before they even wound it.

"So you two are not romantically involved?" asks the wild girl, still on offense. Persephone can see the tense muscles under the girl's tunic, the rile of strength and skilled hunt.

Persephone shakes her head '_no_' because her mouth refuses to say they are not, a strange ache in her chest she instantly wants not there any longer. "No," she forces herself to say aloud, but the letters scratch her tongue.

"Hmm," says the wild girl with a twinkle in her eye. Stretching out a rough hand past Lord Hades in blatant dislike of him, the girl says, "My name is Artemis; pleased to meet you, my Lady Persephone."

Persephone hesitates but a moment before shaking the girl's hand back, the dire wolf at her side giving a content rumble as Lord Hades sits up again, brows furrowed. "A pleasure to meet you too, Artemis," Persephone says happily, wanting to keep Lord Hades' throat from suffering anymore damage.

Artemis grins, sharpened teeth like fangs. "Any woman on run from her betrothed needs assistance, especially in the company of a _man_," the girl says after a moment, scowling in Lord Hades' direction; for his part Lord Hades' simply looks into the distance with a roll of his eyes. "How about Leto and I accompany you to the Eleusinian borders, my Lady?"

"Leto?" Persephone asks curiously, because surely there cannot be _another_ wild girl roaming about.

"The wolf," Artemis laughs, nodding her head to the giant dire wolf still stagnant at Persephone's side and now sniffing in Lord Hades' direction curiously. "She is my mother, for all intents and purposes."

"Oh," says Persephone, and at the instance in Artemis' expression she says, "It would be lovely if you would accompany us," despite Lord Hades' warning glare.

* * *

Artemis rides her dire wolf mother like a horse, and Leto seems not to mind it at all, happy to have her adopted daughter close.

Their ride through the forest a shortcut, Artemis insists, though it seems much, _much_ longer than a shortcut is filled with chatter, something foreign to Persephone after long days and nights spent with Lord Hades' who is apt to say barely a word. Artemis talks of her time in the wild, where she has lived since infancy when her parents died in a fire.

"I was just two," Artemis says, petting Leto's fur absentmindedly; Charon and Fury are still weary around the giant predator and keep a safe distance. "Somehow I made it from the blaze and wondered into the forest, where Leto found me."

"How do you know common tongue, if you were raised by a wolf?" Persephone asks, not able to help herself.

Artemis grins. "I may have been raised by a wolf, but that does not mean I do not like human treats. When you steal from markets as a way of life, you learn a good thing or two. And not just _words_, my Lady."

The wink that Artemis gives Persephone then is not only teasing, but flirtatious as well. And while a bright blush blooms upon Persephone's cheeks at the implications behind the gesture, Lord Hades stiffens and grumbles something dark below his breath that Persephone cannot make-out.

But Artemis does.

"Watch it, _boy_," the wild girl growls, turning to glare at Lord Hades with her bright, forest eyes. "I can hear as sharp as Leto on my worst days do not think I shan't ram you through with my knife for that insult."

"Persephone is not in the looking for a lover," Lord Hades says.

"Do you speak for her now?" asks Artemis, turning her sharp gaze to Persephone once more. "Does he?"

"No," Persephone says, nervous bite of the lip. "But I cannot stay in these lands, so a lover most likely is…unreasonable."

Her flush darkens at the image of her and Artemis together in that way, a certain taboo that most would not speak of. She has heard such rumors in court though, of the women satisfying each other. The men doing the same with one another, too. And she knows the nymphs in Eleusinian do it all the time, and even that Prince Apollo himself has more a liking for young men than women.

And while Artemis is certainly beautiful and has a certain drawing wit about her, Persephone can never see herself with someone like that. Intimacy is a threatening thing to her it means being tied down, a part of another. She wants to be entirely herself, and not let someone steal half of her heart; she may need it someday.

"We shall see," Artemis smirks, tugs on Leto's scruff and faces forwards again.

Persephone pretends she does not see Lord Hades' jealous scowl as they continue forwards on their journey.

* * *

"She delayed us on purpose," says the irate Lord later that night, as their small party beds down in a clearing just shy of the Eleusinian border.

What was a boundary they would have once reached by noon had they stayed on the main roads is now still an hour's ride before them, and with the sun vanished from the sky and the horses exhausted, they have no choice but to stop for the night.

"Do not say anything to her about it," Persephone warns, glancing over to where Artemis is stoking the fire and skinning two rabbits Leto caught for dinner in less than a blink of an eye after Artemis had dismounted the dire wolf for the night. "She is…_interesting_, and seems harmless enough now that we are on her good side, but do not push your luck."

"My luck," Lord Hades scoffs, giving a heaved sigh. "I see not what she has against men."

"Did you not pay attention while we were riding?" Persephone asks.

"I was more focused on the way she was eyeing you like you were a fine desert, my _Lady_," Lord Hades says in mock of Artemis' tone when she uses the term in speaking to Persephone flirtatiously.

Persephone flushes for the hundredth time that day and does not think about it before reaching out and shoving Lord Hades' shoulder forecfully. Both of their eyes go wide after she does it, and Persephone rushes to apologize but he waves her off reassuringly.

"I guess I deserved that," he says, pursing his mauled lips. "So tell me, _why_ does she hate men, exactly?"

"She was caught stealing once," Persephone whispers, checking to make sure Artemis is not paying attention to them so she does not get the wrong idea of Persephone relaying the story for joke instead of simple information. Luckily the wild girl is still skinning the rabbits and paying them no heed. "This was in Olympus, mind you, and as you know the penalty there is jail sentencing. The guards, who were _male_, tortured and raped her while she was there… The head of Guard said not a thing about it to the King, and she probably would have been killed had she torn out the throat one of the guards with her teeth while they were defiling her and escaped.

"She came here to Eleusinian after she had found Leto again, and since then she has absolutely hated men. With good reason though," Persephone says with a frown. "The injustice done upon her is unacceptable. And the worst thing is the punishment for rape in Olympus? Only a day in the stockades. At least here in Eleusinian, they cut you lecherous cock off."

Lord Hades smirks at her usage of vulgar word and Persephone's blush reaches down her collarbones as she looks away. "Your father's imposed rule, I suppose?"

"Yes," Persephone says, tucking matted hair behind her ear. "He never touched a woman without their consent, and believed it should be the same for everyone else."

"He was correct in that," Lord Hades nods.

"Did y_ou_ ever…?" Persephone begins to ask before she can stop herself, quickly stammering off with an embarrassed hand clasped over her mouth. "I am sorry that is not my place to"

"I have never touched a woman without their permission," Lord Hades says, signaling there is no need for her rushed apology. "It is not right."

Persephone exhales in relief, smiling at him. "You are a good man," she says.

Something in Lord Hades' expression catches, but she supposes it is just the scar that makes her think that, for he is composed in the next second. "And you are much too smart to get caught up with that girl," he says, nodding over his shoulder to Artemis' busy form. "She is pretty, yes, but do not be fooled by an enticing demeanor. She will distract you from leaving, if you fall into bed with her."

"I do not anticipate such a thing happening," Persephone says, glancing away in renewed chagrin. "Bedding anyone has never been much of a want of mine."

"Truly?" Lord Hades asks perplexedly. "Then what would you have done once married, when it is expected of you to bear children?"

"Endure it," Persephone says, looking up at him from under her lashes. "I always imagined I would just lay there and think about flowers, or something."

"Flowers," laughs Lord Hades. "You truly are so much like the nymphs and sprites you watch over."

"And are you like the wraiths?" Persephone asks softly. "The demons?"

Lord Hades sobers at the question. "A bit," he says. "They are solitary creatures, as am I."

"Is it true you command the dead?" Persephone asks, her tongue slipping her again.

"No," says Lord Hades, and then answers the question she does not ask aloud, "If so, I would have brought your father back to you long ago."

"You truly were good friends with him, were you not," she says, a statement more than a question.

"Yes," Lord Hades says softly. "I owe him nearly everything that I have now. If it were not for the help of your father, we would have a king worse than even Zeus."

"Kronus?" Persephone asks, perking up just slightly. "Then is it true? Did Zeus really kill him for the throne?"

"Not just Zeus," says Lord Hades softly. "I too played a part. As did your father, and Lord Poseidon."

Persephone's mouth forms a small 'O' at the truth, gaze going wide.

"Your mother knew as well," says Lord Hades, shocking Persephone all the more. "As did Queen Hera, since she and Zeus were already engaged at the time. Lady Hestia too, being Hera's sister and all. As does Oceanus, and Atlas. I am sure even Poseidon's wife has heard the tale by now."

"His wife from Eleusinian," Persephone grins, despite the morbidity and secrecy of what she has just heard. "Everyone says she is the most beautiful woman from the lands."

Lord Hades blanches at her then, the soul-craving look that shakes Persephone down to the bones. "I would not say the most," he murmurs, and she can see the sudden want in his eyes, the pinprick of idea she refuses to acknowledge.

She is saved by the call of Artemis that dinner is ready.

"Did I interrupt something?" the wild girl asks as Persephone and Lord Hades sit next to her at the fire.

"Just discussing how best to weave through Lord Atlas' lands once we reach them," Lord Hades lies smoothly.

"Watch for giants," Artemis relents with a scowl. "And huge scorpions."

"So those myths are true?" asks Persephone with abrupt trepidation. She _detests_ scorpions, the way they look like little crawling skeletons and leave you delirious in fever for days with one prick. And those are just the normal ones she cannot imagine what the sting from those the size of horses shall do.

_More than likely kill me,_ she thinks morbidly, looking at the stick of smoked rabbit Artemis hands her way in new light.

"Sure are," says Artemis. "But they are mainly in the wild ranges, so you should be fine if you stick to the main roads, right _boy_?"

"I have a name," Lord Hades scowls, grinding his teeth.

"Do you think I care?" Artemis asks, wraps half her cloak around Persephone's shoulders when she shivers from the night chill. The action brings new heat to Persephone's face not from the fire, and a very unsettled look to Lord Hades' brow. "To me you are just a meat sack I would like to kill, and the only reason I have not skinned you yet is because you are helping Persephone."

"Well, I guess that is better than nothing," Lord Hades mutters, bites into his menial skewer of rabbit and grimaces at how charred it is. "I am sorry to hear of your treatment in Olympus, by the way."

Both Artemis and Persephone stiffen, the latter sending accusing eyes at him for betraying what she said to him in confidence. "I thought you were not paying attention to what I said on the ride," Artemis says, and the girl's assumption that is where he heard the tale from at least makes Persephone settle a bit and glare less at Lord Hades.

"Why do you say that?"

"You were too busy making moony eyes at our lady here," Artemis says, nodding to Persephone with a shrug.

Persephone stiffens again, stares into her lap and tries not to let her mind decipher Artemis' words. She shall not acknowledge the sudden and rapid beating in her chest at the idea of Lord Hades looking at her in such a way she _cannot_.

"Yes, well, I can multitask," Lord Hades says. "I am not as stupid as most men."

"That is a lie," Artemis laughs. "All men are about equal stupid, and do not try to deny it. You all think with your cocks and nothing else."

"What about our hearts?" Lord Hades challenges.

Artemis grows abruptly tense, even more so than before; Leto growls from where she is perched on the other side of the fire, a whole rabbit to herself for dinner, undercooked. "I think _not_," Artemis says.

"I shan't argue with you about it," Lord Hades sighs, seeing the tension in the situation and knowing better than to agitate it more than he already has. "I just want to say that there could be some good men in the world."

"Technically that is arguing," Artemis grumps, tearing a piece of meat away from her skewer with sharp teeth. "But I will not slit your throat for it."

"My father was a good man," Persephone mumbles, twisting her dinner round and round in soft thought. "He was fair, and he taught me that women are no less than men, even if the men do not think so. He was good to all people."

"Does not sound like too bad of a guy, I guess," Artemis relents after a moment. "But I am sure he still thought a lot with his cock."

Persephone grimaces. "Oh, please do not make me think of that."

The small laugh the party gives then seems to ease the rest of the tension and Leto puts her head back down to continue with dinner, Persephone settling into Artemis' cloak comfortably as Lord Hades offers the two girls dried fruit to make the gamey rabbit go down a bit easier.

* * *

Later, when everyone else is asleep, Persephone lays on her mat and furs and stares up at the moon, thinking again and again about the way Lord Hades looks at her.

He cannot be sweet upon her, can he? They barely know each other, and though he has said he thinks her beautiful, Persephone knows he is a man that finds more to like than just appearance in a woman. But the way he stares at her, as if he would like to reach into her body and take her soul for his own if he could…

_But we both know it cannot happen, _Persephone reminds herself with conviction. _The moment we reach his palace I will be leaving and I will not come back._

And then she wonders what would happen if he were to come with her, forsake his lands and explore the world at her side.

Just as quickly as the thought forms, she shakes it off. Lord Hades would never do such a thing; he is a man of honor and he will not abandon his people, even if Persephone were to ask him to. Which she will _not_, because she is a woman of honor and that would be wrong of her.

_More wrong than abandoning your own lands and letting your loving, fragile mother think you are dead?_

She tosses and turns then, cannot let herself find the peace of sleep, Morpheus leaving her to her own devices.

Sighing, she takes off her furs and wonders down to the small stream they have camped by, only Leto perking up to track Persephone's movements before sensing no threat and laying her shaggy head back down next to a snoozing Artemis.

Persephone kneels at the stream and breathes into the night air, breath coming in fog. Shivering, she lifts cool water up to splash her face, run her fingers through her hair.

What would her lady mother say, if she knew the truth of what was happening? Would she still mourn Persephone's loss, or shun her as a daughter completely? Would the royal guard be sent after Persephone to hunt her down and bring her back to Court for trial and beheading?

What will the world say, when she shows herself as a woman and demands respect? Hardened adventurers will laugh in her face, tell her that as long as there is a cunt between her legs she will never establish herself as someone great.

_I never should have done this,_ she thinks, hot tears biting at the corners of her eyes and spilling over to mar her cheeks red. _I should have stayed with Mama and married Lord Ares and done what was expected of me._

It would have been _safe _and _honorable_, and while her life would not have been happy, she would have brought respect to her family and would not be alone. She would have gotten to stay with her lady mother and never say goodbye to Eleusinian, and had little babies that she could name after her father and favorite heroes from all the adventure stories she so loves.

A sudden sob rips her throat then, torn chords as she thinks of her father, of how disappointed he would be in her for abandoning her lady mother and her people and her duty. Persephone covers her mouth with her hand and doubles over, lying down on the bank and crying strangled tears.

Lord Hades had said he had promised her father he and his kin's happiness, but what has Persephone's happiness to do with the wellness of her family? _I am being so selfish_, she thinks, staring up at the moon in sudden grief. She was all that Demeter had left, and now her lady mother is all alone with eternal threat of the King to steal her lands away from her for a new lord to rule.

_She is alone and so shall I be, soon,_ Persephone thinks. _I will not be great, I will be a laughing stock. What was I _thinking_?_

How long she cries for, she does not know. But eventually her limbs grow cold with ache and her throat hurts from her sobs, eyes raw. She is so delirious from her shivering that she barely notices the figure that kneels at her side in the frozen dark, worried eyes and a worried fingers at her pulse.

"Persephone," says a voice as thick as death and sweet as honey.

Suddenly she is on the ground no longer, carried back to her sleeping mat and covered with furs. A strong warmth slides in next to her, rubbing at her numb limbs. She is still sniffling, little mewls of tears as she turns to face the heat source and buries her face in the warm strength of it.

"_Shh_," coos the honey death voice. "_Shhh_, it is okay. I have you now. It is okay." Something smoothes tangled hair from her face a_ hand_, she thinks vaguely as her sobs slip off into heavy breathing while her skin grows warm again, tingling. "It is okay," coos the voice once more, arms tightening around her. "Everything shall be okay."

She drifts off to the press of lips on her forehead, Morpheus cursing her to dark dreams of frost and rotting pomegranates.

* * *

When she wakes again in the morning, it is to an empty bed.

She realizes, vaguely, that it was Hades who picked her up from the bank last night. A feeling of embarrassment sets in, followed by a splitting headache as she opens her eyes to the dawn. "Oh," she says, clutching her temple with a groan.

"Do not sit up too fast." Persephone opens her eyes again and squints, finding Artemis sitting next to her cutting pieces out of an apple and popping them into her finely shaped mouth. "You will make yourself even sicker."

Persephone nods, or at least tries to, which ends up in her groaning again and wishing she were dead. With a laugh, Artemis moves her lithe arms around Persephone's shoulders and helps her into a sitting position slowly, smoothing furs out behind Persephone's shoulders to keep her propped up.

"Where is he?" Persephone croaks, her mouth feeling like it is coated in layers of sand. She cannot bring herself to think of the man as _Lord_ Hades anymore after what happened last night she feels the title incorrect in the intimacy they now share.

The realization scares her.

Artemis hands Persephone a canteen with a sharp look and she sips stream water from it greedily, even though the cold burns her chest, trying to wash the fear and ache out.

"Your knight is off catching breakfast with Leto," Artemis says, a hint of a scowl in her expression. "Apparently the mangy animal likes him."

Persephone wants to laugh at how betrayed Artemis appears, but cannot bring herself to past the throbbing in her head. The last time she felt like this was after too much wine and retching onto Prince Apollo's new boots. But she had nothing to drink last night who knew that crying cold do such a thing to a person?

Then again, she has never cried that hard before in her life, she thinks. Not even when her father died she has felt too numb for years to shed more than a few tears when she thinks about him.

_Would even the Fates have guessed running away from home would be the thing that breaks me? _she thinks to herself, sipping more at the canteen.

"You had better watch it, my Lady," says Artemis after a pause of silence, and Persephone looks at her with drawn eyebrows then. "I woke up to you two embracing," says the wild girl, undeterred by Persephone's frazzled flush. "If you are as determined to leave these lands as you say, you cannot grow any closer to that man."

"He was just keeping me warm," Persephone says feebly, though she knows not if she is trying to convince Artemis or Herself more. "I wondered off and nearly froze to death last night, before he found me."

Artemis' eyes narrow at her, a shake of the head. "Whatever the case, you are becoming wrapped in him."

"And how do you know this?" Persephone snaps, agitated that Artemis cannot leave well enough alone and stop reminding Persephone of things she does not want to think about.

"I just know," Artemis says, looking both hard and remorseful. "It can be scary, thinking you are alone, but it is better than getting trapped in the web of another and letting them rip your heart out for feast."

And in that moment, Persephone can see another reason as to why Artemis is the ways she is.

"You were not always alone," Persephone says, her suspicions confirmed by Artemis' tired intake of breath. "What happened, Artemis?"

"I had a lover once," Artemis shrugs, turning back to cutting pieces of her apple to chew on. "A girl from one of the towns I frequently robbed. Her name was Atalanta. She was a pretty thing dark skin like you, only she had dark hair too, and not the honey curls you have…" Artemis trails off to study Persephone then, reaches out and flicks a hand over Persephone's breasts and startles her. She squeaks and Artemis laughs before settling back on her palms as Persephone clutches her head which is throbbing from sudden motion. "She had nice teats too," Artemis winks.

"But you did not love her for that," Persephone says.

"No," Artemis agrees. "While I liked them, I truly loved Atalanta for her charm and her hidden wild side. She was an amazing huntress," Artemis' expression is wistful for a moment, before turning dark with ill memory. "Her father did not approve though, and so he set up a competition to win her a suitor. A fellow named Meleager won, and while Atalanta still loved me when they were first married, her affections eventually…_changed_ as she began to fall in love with her husband. It was around that time that I was arrested, and when I came back she wanted nothing to do with me anymore. She wanted a lion, not a wolf."

"Oh, Artemis," Persephone says, grasping the girl's shoulder in soft condolence. "I am so sorry."

"It is alright," Artemis shrugs. "A lesson well taught in not to give yourself to anyone."

Twigs snap in the distance then, a signal that Hades and Leto are back from the hunt. Persephone looks up eagerly, then realizes what she is doing and bites her nails into her palms, staring at the remains of last night's fire tensely.

Artemis tips Persephone's chin back up then, gaze full of warning as their eyes meet. "Learn from my mistakes, Persephone," she says. "You are meant for more than him. Love is not the greatest adventure, despite what the songs say."

And while Persephone knows Artemis' words are true, she cannot help the pull of the strings of her heart when Hades smiles good morning at her.

* * *

They say goodbye to Artemis at the Eleusinian border, sun rising steady in the early morn sky.

"Remember what I said," whispers the wild girl, pressing a cold object into Persephone's hand. When Persephone looks down at her now filled palm, it is to find a small carving of a wolf hooked onto a piece of chord, like a necklace. "Do not let him tame you," Artemis warns.

And then, in a move Persephone does not expect, Artemis tangles her fingers in Persephone's hair and kisses her. It is a touch of soft lips and feral teeth, awkward spit when Artemis shoves her tongue into Persephone's mouth. But all together, Persephone must admit, it is not unpleasant.

Artemis pulls away with a smirk when Hades awkwardly clears his throat, shifting astride Charon and adverting his eyes.

In sudden voice she should not speak, Persephone says, "You could always come with me," to the wild girl before her, because who better than to keep her free than a girl that adheres to no rules?

"I cannot," Artemis says sadly. She looks at Leto, who is standing beside Fury waiting at the border to move again, the horse still uneasy in the presence of the giant dire wolf. "I owe the old girl too much, and she is on her last leg. I cannot leave her now."

Persephone nods, a mournful understanding and guilt. _Artemis cannot leave her mother just because you left yours, _she chides herself.

"Then until we meet in another life," Persephone says, giving Artemis a parting smile.

"Oh, I am sure our paths will cross before then," Artemis chuckles as she mounts Leto, hair flying free in the fall breeze. "Good luck, my Lady." And then, grudgingly she says, "Have a nice life, _boy_," in last acknowledgement of Hades.

Persephone watches the dire wolf and wild girl disappear into the distance, steps into Fury's saddle after they have vanished with a soft longing.

When she glances to Hades, it is to see him looking at her in worry. "Did you want to stay with her?" he asks after a moment, apprehension in his dark eyes.

"No," Persephone says, glances after Artemis one last time before directing Fury forwards. "I have other adventures awaiting me."

She remembers Artemis' words '_learn from my mistakes_' and clutches the wolf charm in her fist, does not look back, leaving the wild girl and Eleusinian behind her, Hades an enticing threat at her side and the world swirling.


	4. Part Four

Part Four

* * *

Persephone loses track of how many hours they have been riding on their second day in the realms of Mèso, the lands of Lord Atlas.

She has heard the stories of Lord Atlas just as she has heard the stories of all the other Great Men of the war. Some say of his valor, while others tell of their fear of him. _It is all nonsense,_ Persephone thinks to herself softly, glancing at Hades out of the corner of her eye and the way his hair tangles from the wind of Mèso's stripped lands. _They fear Hades when they never should; he is better than King Zeus so revered._

"It is getting dark," Hades says after a while, Helios laying to sleep as his sister blinks bright in the sky like a Cheshire's smile. "We should bunk for the night."

"Alright," Persephone says, nervous bite of the lip as she wonders if they will share a sleeping mat again.

They did the night before; it feels natural after their night with Artemis– Hades rocking Persephone to sleep as they keep the cold away from one another. She knows it is wrong. She knows it will just tie her to him all the more, but when he offered again last night to save her from the nightmares, she felt she had no choice but to let him. It is like he is in her bloodstream now, a constant that she does not want to blood-let.

_I am doomed for it,_ she tells herself. _Just a few short days and he is already a part of me. Whatever shall I do to be able to leave him?_

"Where will we stop?" Persephone asks after a moment, patting Fury's mane to get the horse's attention so she will slow.

"I was thinking we may stay at an inn tonight," Hades says, dark eyes watching carefully for her reaction.

Persephone simply blinks at the offer, turning to raise a brow at him. "How?"

"There is one just over that ridge; I saw a sign for it a mile back," Hades says as he points a gloved hand to the hill before them and what supposedly lies beyond. "It is not much, but we could have a real bed and some decent food."

"Sounds…_nice_," Persephone says with a waxing smile. "But, will anyone notice us?"

"No," Hades says, shake of the head. "I will wear my hood, and your name is the only thing recognized in these lands, not your face."

"Then what shall I call myself if someone asks my name?" She likes the idea of trying it out, now– a pseudonym. Once she leaves Elláda she will have no choice but to call herself something new, and she could use the practice. The title of Persephone Manthanos is so deeply instilled she thinks it may take an eternity for it to be erased.

"Whatever you like," Hades says. "What is a name that is favorable to you?"

"Cassandra," Persephone says, the first name to come to mind.

"Like the cursed prophet from the stories of old?" Hades asks, brows furrowed in amusement.

Persephone blushes, gives the tiniest shrug. "I always liked her. It is not fair she was cursed just because she could not love a God."

"Some say she teased him," Hades murmurs.

"That does not give him the right to ruin her life," Persephone snaps despite herself. "The whims of men are brutal; they think they are the Gods' gift and women their simple companions. We are no more than dogs to them, and the moment we bite back they chain us. It is…it is–"

"Wrong," Hades supplies for her with dejected expression as Fury and Charon bring them over the hill, prairie spread out before them with a single glowing beacon in the distance.

"Yes," Persephone answers, expression falling at the hurt she has laid upon him. "I am sorry; I made a generalization. Not all men are that way. _You_ are not, Hades."

"You see me in too bright a light, my Lady," Hades says, leading their horses down the narrow path towards what Persephone guesses must be the inn he intends for them to stay at. "Even I have my skeletons in the keep."

"But that is from war," Persephone says, watching the impassive air that takes over Hades' entire being. "No one can blame you for doing as expected."

"I killed many men then, Persephone. I left their families without them, all for the simple conquer of land," Hades says, eternal scowl deepening. "Serves right that they disfigured me for it."

"You are not disfigured," Persephone says, nose twitching. "Did we not just have this conversation a few days ago? You are _handsome_, Hades. Stop acting like a ninny about it. The scar distinguishes you, and that is all."

"How _is_ a creature like you real?" Hades answers her, shaking his head with a chuckle. "It is like you are the sweetest flower in all the grove, yet when one reaches for you, you bite their hand off."

"I am a tad too much like my mother in that respect," Persephone laughs, thinks about the implications of her words for a moment before the giddiness in her chest falls and she exhales softly. "I do so hope she is not too distraught with my absence."

"Lady Demeter is a tough woman if I have ever met one," Hades says, bringing Charon to a slowed trot as if almost to delay them reaching the inn, keep their conversation running for as long as he can. Persephone has noticed more and more these past few days of how he tries to draw out their time together, like he does not wish for it to end. Perhaps, she thinks, he has become as attached to her as she has to him.

If so, then they are truly in trouble.

"I still think she sent the entire King's Guard after me," Persephone says after a moment, a comment she has said to Hades hundreds of times during their trip. "How you have made sure we have eluded them, I still have no idea."

"I am the best at what I do," Hades says with a cocky smile.

Persephone clucks her tongue at him, reaches the short distance between their horses and shoves at his shoulder playfully, a sudden commonality of affection that has formed between them since that night with Artemis, the first time she touched Hades in affability and not necessity. When she leaves him, she knows she will miss it, the strong pull of leather and muscle under her palm and the little smile Hades reserves only for her.

The moment they reach the inn, Hades instantly pulls the hood of his riding cloak over his face to hide his scar, helping Persephone down from Fury and bringing her hood up as well. "I would say you should pretend to be a man so our explanation of journey would be easier," Hades murmurs, tucking her curls into the folds of her hood. "But you obviously are not a man–" his eyes move from her hair down to the rest of her body, lingering on the curves that identify her as female making her flush– "so I suggest we tell them we are married, traveling to take care of my sick mother in the Underworlds, if anyone were to ask."

Persephone nods, tugs her cloak tighter around herself and takes her satchel from Fury's saddle as the horse bends at her post to drink from the watering barrel below. Hades wraps his arm around Persephone's waist when she is all settled, to keep up the façade of marriage, she supposes as they slowly climb up the steps of the inn.

It is an old building, made of stone and pine wood with two floors and a smoking chimney. Persephone can see a small lake in the distance, the outhouse just to the right of the inn with a fat man lumbering towards it from a side door on the inn, humming a tune to himself under his breath. She recognizes it as a tune about the Sixth and smiles; her father used to sing such a song when he would cut fire wood in the mornings.

The inside smells of mead, sweat and piss. Persephone is virtually immune to it though, having dealt with soldiers' quarters in Eleusinian when her father went on trips to monitor the lands and took Persephone with him after much beginning on her part. She takes in the sounds more vividly, having become so used to the quiet of open road that the loud music of a fiddler and arguing of burly men is quite a shock.

Hades steers them to a table in the back, most of the men in the inn so drunk they do not notice the odd pair that has just entered. Persephone sits in a bit of a nervous heap, fingers drumming the table top as Hades tells her to stay where she is, that he will be right back with a room and warm food for them. She gives him the bravest smile she can muster, keeps up the confidence even after he leaves.

_Pretend you are in Court,_ she thinks to herself determinedly. _Do not let them see you fold. You are in the world of men now, Persephone. This is no time to crack like brittle ebony; act like Papa would._

And it all goes well, Persephone sitting and minding her own business with strong posture and still hands. That is until a man the size of an ox slides into the chair next to her, breath smelling of barely and spoiled meat as he breathes at her ear.

"What's a pret-ty lil' thing like you doin' here, sweetheart?" he asks, blue eyes glassed over from too much mead. He would be nice looking, she thinks, were it not for the air of threat rolling off of him in waves.

"I am with my husband," Persephone says, hoping this will deter the man before her and make him leave. "He shall be back any moment, and you sir, are sitting in his chair."

The man laughs at that, rolling tendrils of rudeness as he reaches out to grab Persephone's forearm. "Oh, come on, sweetheart," the man says. "I bet I can show you a real good time!"

"Let go of me, please," Persephone says, gritting the words out through the uneven gaps of her teeth; the man's grip is so tight she knows he will bruise her. Instead of afraid though, she is quickly becoming agitated, trying to pull away.

The man holds fast. "Hey– _hey_, just let me buy yous a drink, then it'll be all better."

"I do not want you to buy me a drink," Persephone says, raising her leg up under the table, free hand slipping down to the top of her boot. "Let. G_o_. Of me. _Now_."

"Now listen here sweetheart–" the man starts, reaching out with his other hand to grab more solidly at her, but quick as a snake, Persephone draws her father's old hunting knife from her boot and stabs the man's newly wondering hand into the tabletop with a sickening slice, blood leaking onto the wood an instant later as the man howls.

The room suddenly becomes silent, all music and chatter stopped, eyes turning to look at the spectacle of Persephone's table with registered surprise. She feels her cheeks flame not in embarrassment, but trepidation. Reaches out and grabs her knife out of the man's hand for new defense, who has switched from yelling to cursing her.

"You _bitch_," he spits. "I'm gonna kill you for this!"

Persephone keeps her eyes on him as he abruptly stands from the chair he was sitting in, sends the piece of furniture rolling backwards. He is holding his injured hand, blood dripping to the floor in red rivulets.

"Seems you like to play with knives, huh? Well, I got a knife for you," the man says, before bellowing the name, "Theseus!"

A new man steps out of the crowd, golden hair and twinkling eyes. He looks back and forth between Persephone and the bleeding man at her side. "Yes, Perithous?" Thesues asks.

"Seems we got a wily one," Perithous answers. "How about we teach 'er a lesson, huh?"

"Why not?" Theseus asks, taking a new step forwards. "I am just drunk enough it may be fun."

Persephone feels ice in her spine as Theseus takes the side of Perithous, both of them leering at her. The rest of the men in the bar are still simply staring, not moving an inch as Persephone bares her teeth and grips her father's knife tighter in her hand. _I should have just stayed with Mother,_ she thinks for a split second as the men lunge at her, hands going towards her throat.

She is able to bite one of those hands, gets herself a slap to the face for it and spits blood, striking with her knife and catching flesh, tearing hard. The man she cut yowls, pulling away for an instant to clutch at the injury in disjointed state, spray of vital blood all over. Persephone turns her attention to the other man grabbing at her hair, pulling her towards the floor by a fistful of curls.

It is Perithous, of course. And when Persephone lands at his stamping feet she does not let herself stay on the ground helpless, turns around to kick him in the shin and have him cursing backwards, only for a second before he strikes at her once more. She closes her eyes, waiting for a blow that never comes.

When she opens her eyes again, it is to the sound of struggle, of a neck being broke. Perithous' body fall lifeless at her feet, followed by Theseus', which is bleeding all over. Persephone blinks at the two dead men, much like the rest of the people in the room are doing. At last she looks up, finds Hades breathing steam through his nose as he clenches bloodied fists at his sides. His hood has fallen off, face revealed to the whole of the inn and she knows that everyone recognizes him.

Another breath and Hades turns to the rest of the room, threat of ended fate in his tone as he says, "You all dare to just st_and_ there while she is assaulted? I should have your _heads_ for this!"

The men in the room stammer, shift on drunken feet because they know the warning holds true from one of the Great Men of Elláda. Yet some men look prepared for fight, while others have a foot out the door, ready to run. It is only a short man with pressed robes that breaks up the rage in Hades, the fire in the room.

"My Lord, oh my Lord Hades, please forgive– we did not know!" the man says, clipped mustache serving as his upper lip when he holds his hands up to Hades and begs on bowed knees. "Please, do not bring your wrath here. I am truly sorry for what has happened to your companion, my Lord, but her attackers are now dead and no other harm may come in my establishment, I beseech you!" Persephone realizes this must be the inn keeper, and wonders how such a tiny man can handle his business with so many thugs lurking around; he cannot possible be doing so on his own.

"Some establishment," Hades snorts, kneels down next to Persephone and glowers at the blood he finds on her split lip, the swell of her cheek from where Perithous hit her. "Are you alright?" he asks her, barely contained anger in his tone.

"Yes," she says, taking the hand he offers to help her to her feet. "Thank you."

"Do _not_ thank me," Hades says, malice not directed at her, but himself. "It is _my_ fault this happened. I should not have brought you here; left you alone."

"You cannot keep watch over me _all_ of the time," Persephone says, shake of the head and blinding pain in her temple. "Besides, I was handling myself well."

Hades' expression shows no amusement at her crack of humor, though he does allow her a small, "You were," as he looks at the deep gash she left gaping in Theseus' stomach. "I wish I had not killed them so quickly; I should have made them suffer longer for even touching you."

"No need for that, my Lord!" the inn keeper says in a rush, small hands flying out in panic. "As I said, I am so _very_ sorry for this debacle. If you simply allow me to lead you to your rooms, then you will no longer be bothered, I swear it."

Hades turns to glare at the inn keeper, opens his mouth with probable threat but Persephone grabs his arm, gathers his attention and shakes her head. "I am tired," she says, the words rolling off of her tongue like compelling honey. "Let us not fight anymore and simply go to bed."

The anger in Hades fades softly at her pleading gaze, posture loosening as he nods his head and wraps his arm around her waist once more, a warmth spreading through Persephone's belly at the comforting contact.

And the moment they leave the inn's main room, there is clamor once more. Men begin to laugh as workers drag Perithous and Theseus' bodies away for burial, no formal law needed since it is known exactly who the men's murderer is: Lords are above such common rules of trial.

Music drifts up the stairs after Hades and Persephone as they follow the inn keeper to the second floor, lead to a room at the end of the hall where they are let inside and promised anything they need free of charge for their troubles.

"Like that makes up for it," Hades grumbles under his breath after the inn keeper leaves, door to their room shut behind the small man.

"Hades, stop being so sore," Persephone sighs, setting her satchel and cloak on a chair in the corner of the room. She cleans her knife with a rag from the washing table near her and sets it inside her boots once they are taken off. "I am simply scratched."

"They hurt you," Hades argues, clears the small space between their charged bodies in tempered stride. Though the softness of his reach betrays the fury, fingers brushing the swell of her cheek as his eyes shine. "I am so sorry, Persephone."

"It is _okay_," she assure him, pressing his palm more fully to the wound and refusing to wince at the sing. He took his gloves off sometime between dismounting Charon and entering the inn, just the callused press of his skin against hers. "But what I _am _worried about is what they shall all do now that they know who you are?"

"Keep their bloody mouths shut and stay out of my way unless they want put to death," Hades answers her, expression cross. "Just because these lands are not under my jurisdiction does not mean Lord Atlas will not hang them from attacking a high ruler."

"But what if they recognize me," Persephone says worriedly. "You may not be tried with the murders of those men downstairs, but even you are not immune to the laws of the King. And we will both beheaded for running from my engagement to Lord Ares."

"I will not let anyone touch you, I swear it," Hades says. "I will kill Zeus before he even gets anywhere near you."

"You speak treason, my Lord," Persephone smiles, the gesture quickly falling as she adds, "And it is not me I am worried about; it is _you_ that my concern is for. Like I said, I handled myself well tonight; what is a few King's Guard in comparison to savage brutes?"

Hades' scowl shifts at the corners of his mouth, like he wants to smile but his anger will not allow him. "I would imagine you could have killed those buggering bastards yourself, even if I had not stepped in," he says after a moment. "The one you stabbed in the stomach would have bled out in a matter of minutes had I not snapped his neck."

"I stabbed the other one in the hand, too," Persephone says, glowering at the memory. "He put his hand on me and would not remove it when I asked him; had he not called for his friend I may have just cut the appendage off if he reached for me again."

This time Hades cannot contain his dark chuckle, the graveled sound stammering off into a sigh as he leans down and presses his forehead to hers. Persephone stills, feeling almost frozen before her body takes over in the intimacy of the gesture, eyes sliding closed as their noses knock together, Hades' hair tickling the sides of her face.

"I do not know what I would have done had I gotten there a second later and they had hurt you anymore," he breathes, one hand still on her cheek and the other tangling in the fabric of her jerkin. "I am afraid I will not know how to let you go once our journey is over, Persephone."

She knows she should push him away in that moment, regret taking root in her chest when his lips touch hers.

Persephone has never kissed a man before; the strength and passion with which Hades touches her is too much. His hands bring fire to her skin and she does not know what to do with her mouth, simply whimpers as he moves his own against hers, chapped lips and awkward draw of saliva as their tongues touch. She thinks he tastes a bit like the earth and ash, the steady pull of a grave as he steals the breath from her lungs as his own.

She buries her fingers into the fabric of his tunic, pulls until her knuckles turn white to keep him pressed against her, bow of plaint body and need. Hades groans into her mouth, hands sliding around her waist to lift her up so he does not have to bend so far to kiss her. And she thinks she could die like this, right here and now. Just the two of them so fused together, love in her veins like a livewire.

_Love?_

It is then there is a knock on the door of their room. Persephone abruptly pulls away from the kiss, wild gasp and hand covering her mouth. Hades looks at her imploringly, confusion etched into his features as she looks down at the floor, shaking her head. His hands clench now that he is no longer touching her, stares for a beat more before going to answer the door, the inn keeper on the other side offering them dinner.

"Shit," Persephone whispers softly, knowing she has just made the biggest mistake in all of this mayhem she has brought upon herself. "_Shit_."

Because if a kiss does not spell out unneeded attachment, she cannot figure what else would.

Hades closes the door softly after the inn keeper has left, a tray with two steaming bowls of stew and fresh bread and wine sitting on the main table of the room. Persephone steadily keeps her eyes to the floor, refusing to speak. Hades does not break the silence, instead simply _looking_ at her, letting her be the one to make the first move in this– her decision.

"I am sorry," is what she finally says, still not meeting his eye; for all her bravery that is the one thing she cannot do. "We should not– we should not have done that."

"It was my fault," Hades says, much like he said down on the inn's main floor. "I am sorry if I overstepped my boundaries."

"It is not that," Persephone says in a rush at his crestfallen expression, not wanting for him to believe her rejection is because of him personally– it is not. It is simply because she cannot become attached any more to this man than she so stupidly has. "It is…it _is_…"

"It is alright, Persephone. You do not have to censor yourself for my benefit," Hades says, giving her a sad smile. There is a strong silence in the room once more, Hades the one not able to meet _her_ eyes this time.

After a while, Persephone cannot take the silence. What was once amiable quiet has turned to an impending sense of discomfort. "I think I will go to bed," Persephone says after a moment, taking off her jerkin and nothing else before climbing under the covers. "My head hurts."

"Of course," Hades says, and does not offer to keep her warm despite the draft in the room.

She closes her eyes moments later and feigns sleep, trying her hardest not to cry as she thinks about their impending departure, the way her lips still swell from his kiss. It does not help that she can hear him moving about the room, taking off his boots and cloak and setting his belt on the table. He tests the dinner, makes a small sound of dissatisfaction and leaves the stew alone, eating only bread instead.

Eventually Persephone falls asleep to the sound of him simply breathing, having never come to bed.

* * *

When she wakes in the morning it is to the welcome of the sun, Helios calling her to the realm of waking. The side of the bed next to her is still bare as she reaches her arm across it, cracks her eyes open and rolls over to the edge, peeking down at a sleeping Hades who looks worse for wear, like he could not catch sleep for a long while last night.

She still remembers his kiss, the heat of him pressed against her and it makes her ache. Shoulders pressed to the mattress, she stares at the ceiling and hopes they will be out of Mèso by the end of the day, and that the lands will keep their memories when they are gone. She does not want that kiss in her head– it will tempt her more than it should and she cannot give into what longing offers.

Silently, she gets up from the bed and washes her face, frowning at the swell of her cheek and bloody cut of her lip. She looks _awful_ with sallowness to her dark skin that brings the freckles across her nose she so hates to attention. With a sigh, she puts her boots and jerkin back on, knife secure at her ankle as she glances at the cold dinner on the table.

Her share of bread is still there, and so when her stomach rumbles she walks over to it softly as to not wake Hades and takes a bite. It has staled through the night, grinding against her teeth as she chews. But, she knows, beggars cannot be choosers and so she sits down and reaches for a glass of wine to soften the crunch, takes one sip and instantly spits it out.

She knows the taste of nightshade; in the smallest doses it simply puts one to sleep. But with quantities this large, she knows she would never wake again if she were to consume it. Panic sets into her chest as she drops her crusts of bread to the floor, leaning down to sniff at the soup. The deadly smell is barely discernable over the parsley and basil in the concoction, but Persephone is an expert at the scents of nature, especially the dangerous ones.

Instantly she pushes up from the table, rushes to where Hades sleeps on the floor and realizes his pallid complexion is not from sleeplessness, but poison.

"Hades!" she calls, smacking his cheek and trying to rouse him. "Hades, wake up!"

He stirs, only a moment with crack of blood-shot eyes and a groan of her name.

"Hades," she says, shaking him. "Hades, how much soup did you eat?!"

"Persephone," he coos, sweat on his hairline and drenching his clothes.

Her breath comes in rapid pants as she uses all of her strength to make him stand, lays him on the bed with fretted worry. "You stay right here," she says, the threat of hysteric tears as she stumbles to the door, pulling it open with flourish. "I will be right back!"

Downstairs, she finds the inn keeper behind a counter serving men ale. "Help," she asks the small man, her face blatant with worry. "Please, someone help! Lord Hades, he has been poisoned!"

And no one dares to even look at her; they simply keep their faces to their tables and the inn keeper acts as if she is not even there. Blinking, Persephone takes a step backwards, realizing just where the poison came from.

She rushes up the stairs in fear, slams the door to their room closed and finds Hades right where she left him. Without thought, she straddles his waist and pats at his cheek again, trying to rouse him. "Hades, Hades, wake up! We have to _leave_. We have to g_o_!"

"Hmm," he says, hands gripping loosely at her waist. "This is a nice surprise."

Persephone sighs at his fever-slicked delusion, pushes herself away from him and grabs their things, trying her best to sling his cloak and belt back around Hades so they will not be lost. Getting him to move is the hardest part; he mumbles incoherent things through fever and wobbles with every step.

As they nearly fall down the stairs, Persephone takes the knife from her boot for help, looking at the bloodstain on the floor where Theseus fell from her attack last night. A few men stand from their chairs as she tries to leave, one even walks towards her. She tenses, limbs pulled taught like a bowstring and ready to fight.

The man that stands before her is a new face– was not here the night before. He has a crafty look about him, the glint of gold in his wide eyes. "Are you in need of some assistance, my Lady?" he asks, and Persephone sizes him up for battle.

It is then two men charge at them, coming with knives and snarls. The golden-eyed man in front of Persephone does not even flinch as he turns with a dagger of his own, elbows one of the attackers in the face before turning on the other, grabbing his wrist and breaking it when the attacker tries to strike. The attacker shouts, punches out with his uninjured wrist but the golden-eyed man simply slits his throat with the flick of a wrist. The other attacker has recovered by now though, going for the golden-eyed man with brute force, only to earn a dagger to the gut.

Persephone gasps, staggers under Hades' buckling weight as two new men surge forwards. The golden-eyed man smiles at the challenge, shoves one away and stands off with the other. The shoved man lands at Persephone's feet, and before he can get up to try and attack anyone anew, she quickly kicks him in the head. It bashes against the counter at her side, the man passed out in front of her.

Motion out of the corner of her eye catches her awareness, the inn keeper drawing a crossbow from under the counter. Persephone drops quickly to the floor with Hades, stays still and shouts to the golden-eyed man in warning, who has taken out his newest attacker plus another when the inn keeper fires.

The golden-eyed man drops to the floor near Persephone, rolling away to avoid being hit. In adrenaline fueled rush, Persephone ducks around the corner of the counter, spies the inn keeper's feet and lunges forwards from a crouch, tackling the small man to the ground and batting his weapon away, holding her knife to his throat.

"Answers," she growls, because by now the golden-eyed man is finishing off the last advisory in the room and there is no one left to help the inn keeper from bleeding to death under Persephone's blade.

"Lord Hades is not liked in all places," the inn keeper quickly stammers, his frame trembling beneath her. "I work for his enemies, and they did not want to waste the opportunity of killing him after he was recognized when killing those two men last night!"

"And so you _poisoned _him?"

"Please don't kill me; I was just doing what I was told!" the inn keeper scolds.

"Aye, my Lady," says a soft baritone behind her; she keeps her knife to the inn keeper's throat as she turns to face the golden-eyed man who is kneeling next to Hades, checking him for injury. "He was doing what he was told– but he did not do it well. Hades will survive if we get him the help he needs soon."

"Why should I trust you?" Persephone asks, watching with trembling attention as the golden-eyed man stands, walks over next to her and stomps his foot down on the inn keeper's face. Persephone scrambles away in the spray of blood, shoulders hitting the counting as bile threatens to rise in her throat when the golden-eyed man next stomps on the inn keeper's throat. "Because," he says after a moment, turning to look at her with a dapper smile like he has not just trampled a man to death and stabbed five others. "If not for me, you and Lord Hades would be dead right now; not to mention the fact I took out the men who ordered the kill in the first place. If you do not believe me, I can dig up their graves out back for you as evidence."

"Why help us?" Persephone finds herself asking, knife clutched anxiously in her grip.

"I am a friend," the golden-eyed man says. "Now if you would follow me, my partner has our ride waiting outside. We shall take Lord Hades to get the proper medical attention that he is in need of."

Persephone weighs the risk of this strange, golden-eyed man's proposal in her head, as confused as it is. She could stay here in a practical burial ground and try to nurse Hades back to health herself, probably letting him die in the end, or she could choose to trust this strange man in front of her and hope he is being truthful in his offer of help for Hades. Persephone supposes that Hades is dead either way if the golden-eyed man is lying, but at least in the latter option she can probably go with him; and she knows she could not live with herself if Hades were to die because of her.

"What is your name?" Persephone asks after a moment, weary eyes and torn heart.

"Hyperion, my Lady," says the golden-eyed man, sticking out a charcoal hand in proposition.

Persephone takes it and Hyperion helps her to her feet. "I am choosing to trust you," she says after a moment. "Do not let me down."

"I will not," Hyperion promises, and helps her carry Hades out of the inn and into the light of the morning.

Persephone is surprised to see the fat man she remembers from last night standing by Fury and Charon (she is ever glad no one tried to kill the horses). There are two unfamiliar horses near the man as well, one attached to a cart bedded in straw.

"Lord Hades cannot ride in his condition," Hyperion explains at Persephone's questioning lift of brow. "Shall we?"

She helps him settle Hades into the back of the cart, brushing stray strands of hair away from Hades' sweat-ridden face. "The fever has hit him hard," says Hyperion. "Soter, do you have anything to help him for the journey?"

Persephone glances at the fat man then, who must be Soter, the quirk of his lips beneath his graying beard. "Sure I do, 'Ion," Soter says, reaches into a bag at his side and pulls out a bottle of reddened liquid. "Oops," he says, staring at it with one eye opened and the other closed. "Wrong thing." He rummages through his bag some more before settling on a bottle of blue liquid and smiles. "Here we are!"

"What will that do?" Persephone asks suspiciously, hovering at Hades' side as Soter prepares to get the sickened man to drink the liquid.

"It should bring his fever down, my Lady," says Soter; Hades chokes on the liquid a bit at first but eventually it goes down smoothe. "Most assuredly I ain't gonna poison him anymore. Lord Atlas would have my head if I did that to one of his trusted acquaintances."

"You work for Lord Atlas?" Persephone asks, glancing back and forth between Hyperion and Soter.

For his part, Hyperion gives a soft shrug of broad shoulders. "Somewhat. We take care of…_sticky _situations for the Lord, and watch out for the people, my Lady."

"Oh," Persephone says, shakes her head at her minimal ignorance before settling on composure. "How long until we can get help for Ha– _Lord_ Hades?"

Soter grins, one of his front teeth golden-shined. "It is about a day's ride my Lady, so we must go now. Except I cannot get Lord Hades' stallion to cooperate."

"He only lets Lord Hades ride him," Persephone says, glancing fondly at Charon. After a second's thought, she takes a timid step towards the blackened stallion. Charon does not fret at her touch, but whinnies softly and sniffs her hair, satisfied.

She mounts him with a surprised blink, smiling softly as Charon stomps just once before settling. "Seems Lord Hades is not the only one with fondness for you, my Lady," says Soter with a large smile.

Persephone blushes, tells Soter that he can ride Fury since his own horse is now pulling the cart Hades rests in. The group prepares to embark rather quickly after that, but not before Persephone watches Hyperion with wide eyes as the man strides back to the now silent inn, and sets the entire structure on fire with just one touch.

"How did he–?" Persephone asks, astounded and newly fearful.

"The Gods bless some more than others, my Lady," Soter smiles at her as Hyperion mounts his own golden stallion and they begin to ride away from the blaze of the inn, smoke curling into the morning sky along with the smell of charred dead flesh.

Persephone tears her eyes from the flames only when Hades murmurs her name from where he lies in the cart as she rides Charon next to it, Hades' hand reaching for her. She strains to wrap her fingers around his softly. "It is okay," she whispers to him, hoping her words are true. "Everything is going to be okay."

It is the first time she does not worry for how she will leave him, but how she will make him stay instead.


End file.
